Unpredictable
by Kat-of-the-Streets
Summary: This story takes a look at what could have happened if Cora hadn't overcome the Spanish flu so easily but gotten seriously sick again. How would that have influenced the other family members? FYI: Sybil, Tom and Edith will feature in this as well, I just couldn't list more than four characters.
1. Chapter 1

AN: I haven't finished this story yet, although I have written quite a few chapters already, but I don't really know where it will end yet, so I'll be almost as surprised as you will be.

Let me know what you think about this!

Kat

* * *

"Lord Grantham, I am terribly sorry to have to tell you this, but it appears that Lady Grantham has had a relapse." He feels as if the world was pulled from under his feet.

"Dr. Clarkson, you said that she was well again."

"And so I thought. But the Spanish flu is unpredictable."

"And you are sure she isn't just tired?"

"Yes, Lord Grantham, I am. The fever has come back and she is hardly conscious."

"But she will make it through again?" He needs the doctor to say yes because when he thought that his wife might die a few days ago he realized that he could not live without her. She is his life. Not that maid or anything or anyone else. He depends on Cora, life without her would be hell.

"To be honest Lord Grantham, the chances aren't very good. I would suggest you spend some time with her while you still can." He stares at the doctor who only yesterday told him that his wife was well again and who has now pronounced her death sentence.

"That can't be true. There must be something to keep her alive."

"She might live but we can't be sure. All the evidence however" What does he care about the doctor's evidences or what that man has read in some magazine article about the flu. The evidence is based on people he doesn't know, he doesn't care about. But the odds have to be beaten here. He needs to make up for the last year, he needs to show Cora how much he loves her, she just can't die believing that their relationship was anything but ideal.

"I don't care about your evidence. Do what you can for her."

"I will of course. Might I suggest that you make Lady Sybil her nurse maid? It is often beneficial for patients when they are taken care of by family. I will come back tonight."

He needs to find Sybil because Sybil can't leave now, she can't go to Dublin now, she has to stay at Downton. He can't lose his wife and their youngest child practically the same day. So he runs to her room and thanks the heavens when he sees her there, together with Mary. "Papa, what is going on?"

"Your mother", Mary's and Sybil's faces fall at the time and they look almost identical and both of them almost exactly like their mother.

"What about Mama?" He doesn't even know if it was Sybil or Mary who asked.

"She has had a relapse. She is terribly sick. Dr. Clarkson said she might not make it this time." The words fall out of his mouth and he doesn't even think about cushioning the blow for their daughters. "Sybil, you can't leave. Not now."

"Of course I can't Papa. I won't. I'll help you take care of Mama. Until she is well again."

"Or until she is dead", his oldest daughter says and leaves the room without saying another word. He wants to grab her and shake her and yell at her for making such a horrible comment, for being such a pessimist, for being so cold, for being so Mary- like, for being so much like him. But he can't say anything because Mary's behavior is what finally makes him cry and he has to let her leave, he is no fit state to stop her and talk to her and tell her off for believing what he does, for thinking that Cora will die. He feels Sybil putting her arms around him after some time and it is an oddly comforting feeling. At least his youngest daughter didn't run at the prospect of such a tragedy, she wants to face it, whatever may happen. The girl is stronger and more grown-up than he cares to think about.

"Papa, we'll do everything to make Mama better. Not just you and I. Mary and Edith too. I am almost sure that Mary has gone into the servant's hall to announce that Mama is not to be bothered with any household questions and that any issues that need to be addressed should be brought to her attention, not to Mama's." He hopes that Sybil's estimation of her sister's reaction is right; he hopes that she'll help and not shut herself away. "Right now nothing can be brought to your mother's attention. She is hardly conscious. I doubt she knows who I am."

"Papa, there are illnesses that really do make you forget, but it takes rather a lot to forget a person one has loved for three decades as much as Mama has loved you. She would have to be very, very sick to not remember you anymore." He wonders if this is true or if Sybil just says it to make him feel better. It would be like her, it would be like Cora.

"Sybil, what am I going to do if your Mama dies? I can't face the world by myself." He doesn't know what he expects a 22 year old to answer but he hopes that she has an answer nonetheless.

"You will never be by yourself Papa. You have three daughters who all love you very much. We would not leave you alone. I promise. For all three of us." He briefly wonders if this means that Sybil would stay if Cora died and thinks that it would a horrible trade off. Even if Cora were to die, he would allow Sybil to go to Dublin. He can't force her to be unhappy for the rest of her life. But he is beyond thankful that she is staying now.

"Thank you Sybbie." He hasn't called his youngest daughter Sybbie since she was five. But she doesn't seem to mind.

"Papa, let's go to Mama. See what we can do for her. Maybe it will help her if you talk to her." He is scared out of his wits, he hardly knows how to walk or breathe, let alone think, but Sybil's words have a calming effect on him. She has given him something to do. But when they reach Cora's room and he kneels down next to her bed, there is nothing that he can say to her, except beg her not to die.

"Wait a moment," Sybil says and leaves the room. He holds Cora's hands and listens to her ragged breathing and is scared that every breath she takes is her last one. But she keeps on breathing and he keeps on holding her hand.

When Sybil returns, she has a book with her and gives it to him. "Read it to her. I know she likes it when you read to her. I'll stay if you want me to, but I'll leave if you want to be alone with her."

"No Sybbie, stay, please. I am too scared." He looks at the book. "It's Pride and Prejudice."

"Yes. It's her favorite. And I thought something familiar would be nice."

"You are probably right."

Sybil has sat down in the settee by now, put a blanket over herself and she hugs a pillow. She looks so much like the little girl who used to beg him to read to her every night 15 years ago that he has to fight an urge to get up and kiss her forehead. He does get up though and sits down on the bed and then begins to read. He still holds one of Cora's hands and he thinks that her breathing becomes more even over time. Maybe Sybil is right and something familiar does help. He looks over at his daughter and sees that she has dozed off. He keeps on reading nonetheless, hoping that Cora can hear his voice and be soothed by it.

Her mother is about to die. Or might be about to die. But that can't happen because what is she supposed to do without her? She might always put up an act of being an independent woman who needs no one's help, but that isn't true. Just the fact that she knows that if she wanted to, she could talk to her mother, that her mother wouldn't laugh about her still loving Matthew and wouldn't despise her for keeping it up with Richard is a comfort to her. But if her mother dies that comfort will be gone. She loves her father dearly, and except for in her looks, she is almost an exact copy of him, but there are things she needs her mother for, there are things she needs her American mother for, who doesn't care about keeping emotions bottled up, at least not in private. She is allowed to cry in front of her mother, her mother will comfort her and she is about to cry about the whole Matthew-Lavinia-Richard fiasco and she needs comfort. She knows that her father wouldn't stop her crying, he would probably even hold her, but he wouldn't be able to comfort her the way she hopes her mother will. She could of course talk to Sybil, Sybil would listen and try to comfort her because Sybil is not only a copy of their mother in looks, but in most other aspects as well, but her little sister has so much on her plate. She wishes she had fought for her and Tom instead of saying nothing and hoping that Sybil would change her mind. She knows what it is to be unhappily in love and her little sister has the chance to be happy and she should fight for it. She will talk to her father about this, once they are sure what will happen to her mother, one way or the other. She wants to help as much as she can, but she isn't good at nursing, she learned a little about it during the war, but it is Sybil who is the expert, she really doesn't have any clue. But she can take over the running of the household, she has been trained for that all her life after all, and now it might actually come in handy.

So she goes into the servant's hall and watches them all rise. "Please", she says, "don't get up."

"My Lady, how can we help you?" It is Carson who asks.

"Lady Grantham has had a relapse. She is not to be disturbed on any account. All matters concerning the household should be brought to my attention."

"Very good my lady." Nothing is 'very good' she thinks but keeps silent.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: I am no doctor, I know next to nothing about medicine, so what I write is probably very, very unbelievable in terms of medical development etc. So to all you doctors and nurses out there, I am really sorry if regarding the illness aspect, this story is absolute rubbish.

Thanks for all the lovely reviews and favorites and alerts!

You rock!

Kat

* * *

"How is she?"

"Still the same I am afraid. Lord Grantham, because your wife's condition hasn't changed at all in the last few days, I ran a few tests. She doesn't have the Spanish flu."

"But she isn't well either."

"No. She's got a very severe case of pneumonia."

"What does that mean? I know what pneumonia is, but what does it mean for her?"

"It means that she will be sick for a long time."

"And after that time, will she be well again?"

"I don't know. I know this is very difficult for you. But the chances that she will die are much higher than the chances that she will live."

"Thank you." It feels odd, saying 'thank you' to someone who has now repeatedly told him that his wife was likely to die. He wonders if the doctor has any idea of what he is going through but he doubts it, the doctor has never been married after and all and to his knowledge neither has the man ever been in love. Maybe that is because he has a job. But then again, Isobel was happily married to a doctor and Matthew has certainly been in love. He briefly wonders if he should do anything about Mary and Matthew but he can't wrap his head around it right now, all he can think about is Cora and hope that she won't die. He spends most of his days and nights at her bedside, he never thought he would spend that much time being with someone who is sick, he just doesn't do illnesses well, but he can't leave her, he wants her to know that he is still there and he hopes against hope that even though she has been barely conscious for longer than three weeks now, she somehow knows that he is there and doesn't want her to die and that he loves her. That is most important, she needs to know that he loves her. They've been through a troubled time but he loves her, he loves her so much and she needs to know that. He has stopped to properly take care of the estate, he knows he will have to get back to that soon, but not before Cora is at least a little better. He doesn't want to think about the alternative, although he thinks that if the worst were to happen he would never start caring about the estate again because he'd be in a deep hole he could never get out of. He loves his daughters very much and he thinks of Matthew as a son but even those four could never help him get over losing Cora. She just can't die. So he remains at her bedside, alternatingly praying for her survival, although he is not a very religious person, begging her not to die and reading to her form her favorite books.

"Cora", her husband says when she opens her eyes. She has been in and out of consciousness for several days now, or maybe it was weeks, time has become something immeasurable for her. She smiles at him, or at least she tries to but she thinks that she is successful because he smiles back at her. "How are you?"

"I don't know", she says and is surprised that she is able to say that much at all. It hurts her throat most of all. "My throat", she says and doesn't get any further. Her husband hands her a glass of water and helps her drink it. Although she feels like a child she is glad that he does because she isn't sure whether she'd have the strength to hold up a glass of water. It makes her throat feel much better. "Thank you. It's better now." He smiles at her again. "My head hurts. And my eyes. And I feel dizzy. And breathing hurts a little too." Her husband takes her hand and his touch is so gentle that she wonders if he is afraid that he might break her.

"What's wrong with me?"

"Cora."

"Robert, tell me."

"You have got a very severe case of pneumonia. You've been in and out of consciousness for weeks. This is the first time since the day of Lavinia's funeral that you've said anything coherent."

"When was the funeral?"

"Three weeks and four days ago."

"Am I going to die?"

"We have to wait for Dr. Clarkson. He said to call him if you were coherent again."

"If."

"Yes. If."

"Robert, I don't want to die." She is not afraid of dying per se; she just wants to keep on living. There is so much she has to live for. Her girls, their home and most of all her husband. They may have gone through a difficult time but she loves him, she is sure they could be happy again. She can see the tears in his eyes and wonders how close to dying she really is. "I love you", she says because if she is going to die then she needs him to know this. They have gone through a very rough patch for almost a year; a rift has been created between them, although she can't put her finger to what started it. It must have either been her working too much or Robert not being allowed to go on active duty, or maybe it was a combination of both. But it led to harsh words and less and less time spent together and to Robert kissing the maid, although he doesn't know that she knows. But the look of desperation on his face tells her how much he loves her and there is no need to talk about a few stolen kisses, she is sure he'd have given those kisses to her if she hadn't almost forgotten about him.

"I love you too", she hears him say and then she falls asleep again.

She wakes up again when she hears one of her daughters call her. "Mama? If you can wake up, please do so. Mama, it's important."

She isn't sure which of her daughters is calling her but she supposes it is a good sign that she is sure that it is one of them. Robert said that she had been incoherent for weeks and she remembers hearing many voices around her as if they were coming to her through a thick fog and the only voice she had been able to recognize had been Robert's, so knowing that the voice calling her belongs to one of their daughters must certainly be progress. She opens her eyes and sees relief spread over Sybil's face.

"Sybil", she says and nothing else but it drives her daughter to tears.

"Lady Grantham, I should examine you."

"Of course", she says and lets the doctor do his work. He prods her in different places and listens to her heart and lung and feels her pulse, makes her cough and shines a light into her eyes. He asks her all kinds of questions she tries to answer as best as she can. Some of those questions seem stupid to her. He asks her whom she is married to and she answers "my husband". Dr. Clarkson looks at her worriedly but Sybil has to stifle a laugh. Her little girl seems very relieved at that cheeky answer and it makes her happy. The poor child had looked so worried and she supposes that Sybil has enough on her plate with wanting to marry the chauffeur and Robert being so against it. She shouldn't have to worry about her mother as well.

"Dr. Clarkson wants to know whether you know who your husband is." She rolls her eyes at this and it makes her head hurt so badly that she regrets it immediately but Sybil shakes her head at her as if to say 'Mama, you are incorrigible' and that thought seems to cheer Sybil up even more and so it cheers her up as well, piercing headache notwithstanding.

"My husband is Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham", she says. Dr. Clarkson smiles at her after this.

"What's the verdict?" she asks him and he looks at her thoughtfully.

"To be honest, I don't know. You still have all the symptoms, especially the coughing and the fever, but the fact that you are obviously able to make jokes is probably a good sign. Are you tired?"

"Yes."

"I will take my leave now and come back tomorrow morning. You should sleep, Lady Grantham."

"I know. But I would like to see my husband first." She feels a little silly asking for him, like a young girl who has fallen in love for the first time, but then that is how she usually feels about her husband, even during troubled times. Sybil smiles at her and offers to get him. When she returns she hasn't only brought Robert, but also Mary and Edith, Robert's mother, Isobel and for some unexplainable reason, Matthew. She has no idea what a man whom she is only distantly related to is doing in her bedroom, but he seems to be genuinely concerned about her health and after all, he has just suffered the loss of his fiancé. And what is more, Matthew actually has become part of the family, she likes him very much, he is a very good boy, man, and he will be a good earl, even if she hates thinking about that. When everyone except for her husband makes to leave the room she sees Matthew squeezing Mary's hand.

"Did you see that?" she asks her husband.

"Matthew squeezing Mary's hand? Yes." Her husband smiles about this.

"Do you think they"

"I don't know darling. But I hope so. I am doing my best not to be in their way. But even if something should come of it, it will take months at least. Lavinia died only four weeks ago. And I'm afraid he would have gone through with the wedding, no matter how much it would have pained him."

"So you think he is still in love with Mary too?"

"Yes. And she loves him."

"Can't you make her sack Carlisle?"

"Can I make our daughter do anything? No. I tried to talk her into marrying Matthew in 1912 already and it did not work. But she hasn't seen Carlisle since the funeral."

"No?" This gives her hope. She wants her daughters to be happy and she is sure that the key to Mary's happiness is Matthew. There is of course still the matter of Kemal Pamuk and she wonders if she shouldn't just tell Robert about it after all. It happened six years ago, they live in a different world now and most of all, Mary deserves forgiveness.

"No. She sent him away."

"Maybe that is a good sign."

Her husband smiles at her now. Despite the fact that they hadn't really talked for months before she fell ill, they are still of the same opinion when it comes to Richard Carlisle. It gives her hope, not only for Mary, but also for them.

"Cora, I've missed this. Talking to you. Not only the past few weeks but during the last year."

"Then let's never forget about it again. Because I've missed it too." She sees the tears running down his face and she has to pull herself together to not start to cry herself. She wants to hug her husband and do so much more than that but she can't even lift her arms. In that moment she realizes that if she really doesn't get well again, she will never really be with her husband again, will never kiss him again, will never make love to him again. It is a thought that tears her apart but also one that makes her determined to fight for her life, to do whatever is necessary to get well again.

"Don't cry", she says to him. "We won't ever let it come to not talking again." At least that she can promise that to him. Should she not get well again, she at least wants to make sure to talk to her husband as much as possible, to make the most of the time they have left.

"Cora, I thought you were going to die. We still can't be sure that you will actually get well again. Dr. Clarkson said that there was a little reason to hope right now but also that you might relapse. And if you do relapse, then I will lose you."

"I don't want you to lose me. I'll try my very best not to die. I promise." She squeezes the hand she's been holding ever since the others have left. "But I am really tired. I need to sleep."

"Yes. You should sleep."

"Will you stay here?" She knows this is silly. She isn't a little child who needs someone to sit next to her. But she wants her husband to sit next to her.

"Yes, darling."

He climbs onto her bed because the chair is becoming rather uncomfortable. She is already asleep but as soon as he sits down she moves closer to him and puts her hand on his leg. While he sits there with his wife so close he wonders about how they got to where they are right now. He wishes she wasn't sick, or at least that her recovery was certain. He wants to spend years and years with her, not only a few more weeks. And they've wasted so much time. At the beginning of their marriage when he realized that she loved him but that he didn't love her he kept his distance. Until he realized that he loved her too. And this past year in which they had both been overwhelmed with the world. He thinks about kissing Jane. He has no idea where she is now but he is glad that she is gone. He wishes he could be sure that he wouldn't have slept with her but he isn't certain. He had missed his wife so much that he was bound to do something very desperate and very stupid. This weighs heavy on his heart and he decides to tell Cora. It will hurt her but he is sure that in the end it will be better.

He drifts of to sleep and is woken a few hours later.

"Papa?" "Papa?" He opens his eyes and looks at Sybil. She smiles at him.

"I wanted to ask you whether you'd like to have your dinner in here."

"Yes. Would you have it send up here please? And something for your mother too?"

"Of course", Sybil says and when she leaves she bangs the door, a habit she hasn't gotten rid of since childhood. "I suppose Sybil has just left the room." His wife looks at him and smiles.

"Yes. I am afraid she will never learn how to close a door silently." He decides that now is as good a time as ever and if he wants to make things between him and Cora better, if he wants them to be what they were before then he should tell her as early as possible anyway.

"Cora, there is something you should know. Something I have done." He doesn't know how to go on.

"You kissed that maid." He feels the color leaving his face and he becomes dizzy. How does she know this? He hopes to God that she didn't see it because that would surely have broken her heart into a million pieces.

"How?"

"O'Brien told me. She saw you twice." He wants to fire that lady's maid. Cora of course has a right to know, but she should have heard it from him not her lady's maid who no doubt only told Cora because she had a plan of her own. Although he wonders why Cora didn't mention it, but maybe she just didn't want to fight before the funeral, because O'Brien must have told Cora after the Spanish flu but before the funeral.

"I kissed her three times. But I regret every single one of those kisses." He can't decipher to look on his wife's face, although she doesn't look too shocked.

"Is that all you've done with her?"

"Yes", he says.

"Good", she answers "because had you done something else with her I would have had to get mad and I am too tired for a fight, especially with you."

"What?" is all he can ask because he can hardly believe it. Even if she knew he'd have expected her to get mad at him, to tell him how disappointed she was in him at least.

"Robert, darling, I know why you did it. I neglected you. You missed me. So much you were bound to do something stupid. But as long as it wasn't more than a few kisses and there was no love involved, I can live with it."

"I love you and only you."

"Good. Then let's put the past year behind us. All of it. We don't know how much time we have left together, but whether it is three weeks, three months or thirty years, let's spend that time together and in love." He only nods because the lump in his throat makes it impossible for him to speak.


	3. Chapter 3

AN: Thank you for the reviews and follows and favorites again! They really make my day!

Someone asked me whether Edith would feature in this and yes she will, but I haven't written that part yet, it is still quite a few chapters until she gets her moment so to speak. But I have a question for you:

Should I let her marry Anthony or should I stick to the original plotline? I really don't know, I have ideas for both secnarios but I can't make a decision.

Anyway, hope you enjoy this chapter. Let me know what you think.

Kat

P.S.: The part that is in italics is a longish flashback, I hope it isn't confusing or anything.

* * *

"Matthew, I wanted to ask you something." She has to steal herself to do this because what she is going to ask him to do is almost killing her, because it once was her vision of their future and if she is honest with herself it still is. She and Matthew, running Downton together. "Go ahead", Matthew says. He doesn't seem to mind her company anymore and she hopes that this is a good sign. As good a sign as when he squeezed her hand while leaving her mother's room. When she felt his hand on hers, she wanted to stop walking, wanted to turn around and kiss him and tell him how much she loves him. But she can't ever tell him that because of Lavinia and Pamuk and Richard and her own stupidity. She keeps beating herself over the head for not having accepted him when he proposed. She should have said yes right away that night after their kiss in the dining room, before they even knew about the baby who would never live. She'd have been happy with Matthew, even if her brother had survived, she is sure of it now. But she won't ever be with Matthew now.

"You know that my mother will need months to recover."

"Yes, of course I do. I am glad that it is almost certain now that she will recover at all."

"Thank you for saying that. My question is whether you would be willing to help my father during that time. He wants to and needs to spend as much time with her as possible. I think she'll recover faster if he is there for her. They love each other so much." She almost cries at this because that isn't the way her marriage with Richard will go. It won't be a match with no love at all, she is sure that Richard is fond of her, might even love her and that quite a lot of his despicable treatment of her stems from jealousy. Richard is jealous of Matthew, that is obvious, he thinks that her heart still belongs to Matthew and he is right. Maybe she could be at least content with Richard if Matthew was out of the picture, but Matthew will never be out of the picture. He is her father's heir, she is her father's daughter, how are they ever going to sever tie? And she doesn't want to do that, even if she can't have Matthew as her husband, she wants him as her friend and protector because he would protect her, she is sure of that.

"What can I do?"

"Take over the running of the estate. I am running the house anyway. And Papa has taught you well. You can do it for a few months. I am sure of it."

"Does your father know about this?"

"No. I thought you would suggest to him. Because it would make him happy." It really would. Her father thinks of Matthew as a son and if she wasn't in love with Matthew so much, she'd think of him as a brother. She knows that Sybil and Edith think of him as that, but she can't, her feelings for him are different and they will never change.

"I'll do it under one condition."

"What is it?"

"You must sack Carlisle." She can't agree to that, Carlisle would ruin her.

"I can't. I need a position and he is willing to give me one. I am not that young anymore, I need to marry. And soon. I can't stay here forever." She wishes she could though, because that would mean staying with Matthew forever.

"Mary, your father won't ask you to leave this house. And I won't either. So as long as I am alive you'll always have a home here." She wishes it were true but she is almost sure that if Matthew found out about Pamuk, and he would certainly find out if she sacked Richard, he wouldn't allow her to stay at Downton. Not when her father is gone and that will break her anyway. She knows that day will come and she hopes that it is decades in the future, but she knows that there will come a day when she will lose her father. She has just almost lost her mother, she still can't be sure she won't lose her soon and the fear of that has led her to think about her father's death too for a few weeks now. She'd be lost without her parents, they are what keep her safe, even if her father doesn't always know what he is protecting her from, he does protect her. She knows he wants her to sack Carlisle, he wants her to be happy. She has an inkling that her mother wouldn't mind her sacking Carlisle either, that maybe her mother thinks that the scandal is not worth a marriage to Carlisle. But it is not just about the scandal anymore. Her mother's illness has brought home to her how short life can be and that she will eventually be without her parents. And when that day comes, she will need Matthew, she will need Matthew to protect her from some Carlisle's worst character traits, she will need Matthew to be able to hold him as a sword over Carlisle's head because the Earl of Grantham would have some power over Carlisle once she had married him.

"Mary," Matthew says in a voice that is as soft as velvet, it is the voice he used when he proposed to her. After they had broken their kiss all those years ago, he had looked into her eyes and said "Oh God Mary. Marry me. Please." She had wanted to say yes so much but she was scared, she couldn't say yes without coming clean about Pamuk. Matthew's impossibly blue eyes are now staring directly into hers and he and she move in unison. They kiss and it feels as if she has gone to heaven. But she knows she has to break the kiss and the sooner the better.

"Matthew I can't kiss you like that. There is something you don't know about me. And you would despise me if you knew."

"Mary, tell me, please." He uses that velvety voice again, a voice she wishes she could hear every day. It sends shivers down her spine and she thinks that maybe that voice speaks of love. And because she feels a tiny glimmer of hope she throws caution and her fear of Matthew sending her away, of him shutting her out, to the wind, and she tells the love of her life about Pamuk, tells him everything there is to tell. She knows it was a mistake the moment she finishes. Matthew moves away from her immediately and makes to leave the room. She feels defeated and beaten. Of course he would leave, he won't help now, he is disgusted and disappointed by her, he won't ever let her come back here once he is the earl.

When he is at the door he turns around and looks at her.

"Sack Carlisle Mary. You must not marry him." he says and the velvet has left his voice.

He is in the library by himself and when he hears the door open and someone walks in he has to smile because he recognized Matthew based on his footsteps. It means that Matthew has now really become a member of the family. Of course he had been that before, but it shows Robert how familiar he has become with Matthew, although it doesn't surprise him because he loves Matthew like a son. When he thought that for the first time he was afraid that he was betraying his daughters but ever since Matthew returned home from the war and they hadn't been quite sure whether he would live for a few days, Sybil and Edith seem to have realized that they look at Matthew as their brother. It is of course different for Mary who is still desperately in love with Matthew and he wishes he could make both Matthew and Mary see sense and finally get over the things that are keeping them apart.

"Matthew," he says and looks up. "Can I help you?"

"Yes. Or rather, I'd like to help you. I came here to make you an offer. I've talked to Mary and she said that you should spend as much time with Cora as you can."

"That's what I would like to do anyway."

"Yes. And you could do so if you left the running of the estate to me. Until she is much better." He doesn't know what to think. Apparently Matthew notices his confusion.

"Not permanently, of course. And I wouldn't make any major decisions. But I am sure that I can deal with the day to day business. You've taught me well. And Mary is running the house in Cora's stead anyway. If nothing else, I am sure that Mary and I work together rather well." Matthew is not the only one who is sure of that.

"Matthew, I don't know what to say." He really doesn't because to him it sounds a little like Mary and Matthew playing house and he doesn't know whether this is a good or a disastrous idea. He wants both Mary and Matthew to be happy and he thinks that they'd be happiest with each other but he doesn't know how to make them see this.

"Say yes. If you don't feel comfortable with this I could give you a day to day report." He sees the honesty in Matthew words and thinks that it was natural for Mary to take over Cora's duties, so why shouldn't Matthew take over his. Maybe they should just risk it; maybe it will lead to happiness after all.

"What about your job?"

"I'll take a leave of absence. They will grant it if I tell them that it is to run Downton."

"And this was your idea?" Matthew shakes his head.

"Well, I did think about it. But I wouldn't have suggested it to you if Mary hadn't asked me to do so."

_He wonders if this is a good sign. Maybe, eventually, Mary will have the courage to tell Matthew about Pamuk. He is sure that the Pamuk incident was the reason why Mary didn't accept Matthew right away. Mary, just like him, believes in complete honesty, even if that honesty will either hurt herself or others. According to Cora, the girl couldn't face telling Matthew about that Turkish, well certainly not gentleman. She didn't tell him either and even Cora kept it secret until a few days ago. He will never forget Cora telling him about it and he keeps wondering if Cora keeping the Pamuk incident a secret is at least one reason why she forgave him for kissing the maid so easily. It had been obvious that Cora had felt rather guilty when she told him. "Robert, I think it is time I told you about something," she had said and it had sounded so serious that he had feared the worst. He had grabbed her hand and said "Whatever it is Cora, tell me."_

_"It's about Kemal Pamuk and Mary. He died in her bed. He somehow managed to find her room and he persuaded her to let her into the room and then they, well, you can imagine what they did. He didn't really force her, at the time she said that he didn't force her at all, but I have come to think of him as the one to blame in all of this. It wasn't rape, but it wasn't with complete mutual consent either, I think. Before you have to ask, we, that is Mary, Anna and I, carried the body back to his room. It wasn't exactly a pleasant experience but what was I supposed to do? Let our girl be ruined by a scandal?" He had been shocked, but not because of what Mary had done, that was six years in the past and if Cora thought that Mary was hardly to blame for it, then he would agree with her, but because Cora had never told him about it and the way she had told him now had shown him how uncomfortable she felt about telling him. She didn't sugar coat anything, it felt more as if she was doing something rather painful and wanted to get it over with as fast as possible. During all the many, many conversations they have had over the years, especially the ones in bed, she had never mentioned Pamuk and it would have made things much easier if she had done that._

_"You could have gotten me to help you. I wouldn't have wanted her ruined either." Cora had then smiled a sad smile at him._

_"No. But the disappointment would have killed you. You look at it differently now because the world has changed, Robert."_

"So you listened to Mary."

"I struck a bargain with her. I told her that I would run the estate as long as necessary if she sacked Carlisle." "And she agreed to this?" He can hardly believe it. There must be something else.

"I'm not sure. But she did tell me about Pamuk." He can see that the moment the words have left Matthew's mouth he wants to take them back. He puts his hand on Matthew's shoulder.

"Don't worry. I know. Cora's told me."

"What do you think about it?"

"That doesn't matter Matthew. All that matters is what you think about it."

"What? Why?" In that moment Matthew reminds him terribly of himself, when during those first months of his marriage he was too stubborn to admit to himself that he loved Cora more than anything else in the world. But at least they had been married at that point, there had been no danger of him running away or marrying someone else to prove a point.

"Matthew, she loves you. It is your forgiveness she wants. I will tell her that I have forgiven her, of course, and it will matter to her, but your forgiveness would mean much, much more to her."

"Is the Pamuk incident the reason why she didn't accept me five years ago?" There are both agony and hope in Matthew's voice.

"I think so. Cora certainly thinks so too. She thinks that Mary was too scared to tell you but also did not want to marry you without telling you about it."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"You didn't marry Cora for love."

"No. You know that." He hates it that people keep talking about it. It is thirty years in the past and he isn't even sure anymore whether he really didn't love her or whether he just didn't realize that he loved her. But he never explains this to anyone. He told Cora about this a few years ago and she had smiled at him and kissed him and told him that when she walked down the aisle and saw the look on his face she had almost been sure that even if he hadn't loved her at that moment, he would come around to it rather sooner than later.

"But you love her now."

"Yes."

"When did you fall in love with her?"

"Sometime during the first year of our marriage." Or maybe the moment he saw her for the first time or spoke to her for the first time or danced with her for the first time, events that all happened within the same quarter of an hour. He really doesn't know anymore because he can't imagine himself not loving Cora. "Why?"

"Do you think I would have found that with Lavinia? What you and Cora have?"

"To be honest, no." This conversation is making him extremely uncomfortable. But he realizes that Matthew needs the advice of a father and he is the closest thing to a father that Matthew has got. "I don't think you would have found that with Lavinia. When I married Cora I wasn't in love with another woman. I could fall in love with her because there was no one else. But for you that wouldn't have been true, would it?"

"No." The defeated look in Matthew eyes makes him want to hug the boy but that would be highly inappropriate. "Matthew", he says instead. "You can't control your feelings. Maybe you would have fallen for Lavinia eventually had Mary been out of your life for good. But that was never going to be possible. She's my daughter, you are my heir."

"I only ever started it with Lavinia to prove to myself that I didn't need Mary anymore, that I had forgotten about her. If it hadn't been during the war, I wouldn't have proposed to her."

"But you would have gone through with it."

"I am not sure. I kept wanting to break it off with her. When my mother and she agreed that the wedding should be moved, I was glad about that because it gave me more time to reconsider."

"Maybe that would have been best. For both of you, or rather all three of you."

"Lavinia loved me, I know that."

"But you didn't love her. Matthew, I know what it is like to be married to the love of your life. I have been happily married for more than 29 years now and I wouldn't give that up for anything. And if there is a chance that you could have that as well, then you should take that chance, no matter how high the risk or how dire the consequences."

"I don't know what to do now."

"You don't have to make a decision now. Think about it carefully. And then follow your heart."

"Thank you."

"Now, would you like me to show you where all the papers are and give you an overview of what is to be done over the next few days?"

"You accept my offer then?"

"Yes. Very gladly." Matthew smiles at this, he looks almost proud. It takes him over an hour to give Matthew and update on the day to day business that will be coming his way now but he thinks that is definitely worth it.


	4. Chapter 4

AN: Sorry for not updating yesterday, I wasn't home ;)

Kat

* * *

She has been trying to read for some time now but it gives her a headache. She has been asleep almost constantly for the past three days, the fever had returned and she hadn't been able to stay awake for longer than a few minutes. She has no idea what Robert told the girls, she also has no idea whether they have been to see her or whether Robert had wisely kept at least Mary and Edith out of her room for most of the time. She is sure that Robert spent quite a lot of time with her, after all he is the only other person who knows that all is not as it looks like, or as it looked three days ago. But now she is awake again and she feels much, much better. So much better that it gives her hope. She manages to sit up in her bed by herself, something that surprises her and makes her rather happy. She tries to read but she is still too weak to concentrate on a page of a book but she is also bored out of her mind. There is just nothing to do for her. She can't leave her bed, she can't read and she can't expect her daughters or husband to spend every waking minute with her, no matter how much she might like to spend the whole day with Robert. He could read to her. She could listen to his reading voice for hours. His reading voice is softer than his normal voice and he gives different characters different voices. She smiles as she remembers the first time he read to her. It was on their wedding journey and she had gotten terribly motion sick on a long train ride through Italy. He asked her if there was any way to make it better and she told him that it would be a little better if she could concentrate on something else. So he took her book and started to read it to her. It didn't make the motion sickness go away but it made it much more bearable. He read to her for hours and although it was only reading a book that he had done, she had had the feeling that she finally learned something really personal about him for the first time in those moments. Since that train journey he has read to her countless times, when she was pregnant and so uncomfortable she couldn't sleep, when she worried about something and wasn't able to focus on anything else, when she was sick and sometimes during afternoons they had off when no one else was around. He read to their children as well, every night until Sybil claimed that she was too old to be read to when she was eight. But she knows that when their girls were sick or sad they'd ask their father to read to them when they were much older still. Robert swore her to secrecy on it, but she knows that he went to Mary's room after they had gotten the news of Matthew's injury, she actually went to Mary's room herself after Robert hadn't come back to bed and when she reached the door she heard her husband read to their eldest daughter. Robert swears that he offered Mary to do it but she isn't quite sure whether Mary had not at least heavily hinted at wanting him to do it.

The door opens and Robert comes in, and his face turns into a beautiful smile when he sees her awake and sitting upright in their bed.

"How are you darling?" he asks softly.

"Bored out of my mind," she says and he has to laugh.

"It's a good sign," he says. "But you won't have to be bored much longer because I will be spending a lot more time with you from now on."

"How is that possible? What about the estate?" He can't neglect the estate for her. At least not any more than he has already done.

"It's thanks to Matthew. He offered to run the estate for me until you were well again. He did that a few days ago but I couldn't tell you until now."

"And you trust him with the whole estate?"

"Yes. He knows what he is doing and he told me himself that he'd ask for help if he needed it."

"So Downton is now run by Mary and Matthew." She is not sure whether this is a good idea. She doesn't doubt that Mary is doing a perfect job, she has been groomed for this for more than ten years and she doesn't doubt Matthew's ability to run the estate either, Robert has been a very good teacher and Matthew is rather intelligent. Neither does she doubt that Mary and Matthew will work together perfectly. But she is afraid of what it will do to them, she is afraid of how Mary will deal with it. She knows that Mary still loves Matthew, she has been thinking about telling Mary to get rid of Carlisle, regardless of the scandal because she can't bear to see her little girl so unhappy. Robert had agreed that Mary deserved forgiveness, that she deserved to be happy, but they have yet to talk about how to get there.

"Yes. It was actually Mary's idea. Matthew struck a bargain with her. He told her he'd only offer his help if she sacked Carlisle."

"She has finally sacked him?" That would make things so much easier.

"I am not sure because Matthew wasn't sure about it either. She did tell him about Pamuk, however."

"Oh. How do you know that?"

"He told me. He has got a lot on his mind right now, but I think there is chance that our hopes aren't in vain. He beats himself over the head with that whole Lavinia business."

"Robert, that is only six weeks in the past. Of course it is still on his mind." How could it not be? The poor boy thinks that Lavinia died because she didn't want to fight for her life anymore, because she knew that he was still in love with Mary. But whether Lavinia really stopped fighting, whether she didn't want to live anymore because of Mary and Matthew, it certainly wasn't Matthew's fault. He can't control his feelings, no one can. And while she certainly felt sorry for poor Lavinia, she knew Lavinia had seen the looks Mary and Matthew kept throwing each other, she can't help but think that even without Mary in the picture, Matthew would not have been happy with Lavinia. She thinks that she has gotten to know the boy pretty well and he needs a strong woman, one that will oppose him, one not scared of fighting with him. Lavinia was the complete opposite of Mary in many ways and she keeps wondering whether Matthew wanted to prove a point when he proposed to Lavinia.

"Yes. But I told him that if he had the chance to marry the love of his life he should do it. So maybe he will."

She squeezes his hand. They have fallen into a habit of holding each other's hands whenever they are alone and it makes her very happy. They used to do that when they were younger but eventually they stopped doing it. She doesn't remember when or why but she is glad that they picked up that habit again.

"Dr. Clarkson will be here in half an hour," he says to her and he sounds worried.

"Robert, I am feeling much better," she tries to reassure him although she is just as worried as him. They had thought that she was on her road to recovery for almost a week, but then Dr. Clarkson had told them that he wasn't sure, that he thought that the pneumonia was even more severe than he had originally estimated because the fever kept coming back. He had warned them, both of them, that if his suspicion was correct, it would most certainly mean that she would die within the next few months, maybe even weeks. As soon as Dr. Clarkson had left after that, Robert had broken down in tears and that had broken her heart. He had been so desperate at the prospect of losing her. She had tried to make light of it, had tried to reassure him that she felt much better but it had all been an act. An act she had been glad to put on for her husband because she didn't want him to, doesn't want him to suffer. He does not deserve that, he deserves to be happy, so very happy because he is a good and kind and loving man, the best one there is and she still can't believe that her parents' stupid plan to buy a title with her and her money turned into something so wonderful, that the man they had more or less forced her to marry had turned out to be the love of her life and that he had fallen for her too and that he made her, still makes her happy, so very happy.

"Yes. But he'll have the results from the tests and if they aren't good,"

"If they aren't good, then we will deal with that."

"If they aren't good it is an indication that you will die. Maybe we shouldn't have lied to the girls and my mother. Maybe we shouldn't have let them believe that your recovery was almost certain."

"Darling, we decided that it would be best not to worry them more than necessary. And I still think that was right. But why shouldn't the results be good? I've stuck to Dr. Clarkson's instruction very carefully. And the fever seems to be gone and the coughing has become much better. I could even sit up by myself. Maybe my body just needed those few days of sleep to get back on track."

"I am just so worried. I love you so much and if you died it would mean the end of my life." She squeezes his hand again and smiles a sad smile at him.

"Don't ever say that again Robert. We have three daughters who all love you very much. There would be no reason for your life to be over just because mine is at an end. You are still young, who knows, maybe you'd even fall in love again. You'd have my permission." She said this in a light-hearted tone but she is serious about it. Should Dr. Clarkson really pronounce her death sentence this afternoon, she will have to talk to Robert about his life after her death. She is afraid that he would shut out the world and waste away but she doesn't want that to happen. She wants him to be happy and while she doesn't want to think about dying she has decided that she will give Robert her permission to keep on living, to fall in love again. He is only in his fifties, he has got two or three decades of life ahead of him, he shouldn't be forced to spend those alone.

"Cora, no. I wouldn't, I couldn't. I have loved you for almost thirty years. There will never be anyone else for me." There will never be anyone else for me. She hopes that it is true, because if it was true, it would mean that she wouldn't have to die and she doesn't want to die. She wants to see her daughters happily married, she wants to meet her grandchildren one day and she wants to be with her husband more than anything.

"Then let's hope the test results are good, because I don't want you to be alone for the rest of your life." He smiles at her but she knows that it isn't a true smile.

When Dr. Clarkson is announced she asks him to allow Robert to stay and he acquiesces. She couldn't stand this without Robert by her side.

"Well, Lady Grantham, I have got good news for you. The test results were good and you are on your way to recovery. As long as you don't relapse again, you should become completely healthy again."

This makes her very happy but her happiness is nothing compared to the elation visible on Robert's face. He stares at the Doctor in disbelieve and relief, and his love for her has never been so plainly visible on his face than in this moment.

"Are you sure?" he asks the Doctor.

"Yes, I am, Lord Grantham. All your wife has to do is be careful and avoid a relapse. Although even that might not be fatal now. But I must warn you. Both of you. The road of recovery is very long. Lady Grantham, you have been very sick and you are far from being well again. It will probably take months until you will be your old self again. And before that, you should not be stressed by anything."

"Dr. Clarkson, Lady Mary and Mr. Crawley are running the house and the estate for the time being. I am sure that they are more than willing to keep on doing that while I am still recovering."

"You also shouldn't do any physical exercise. You should stay in bed and rest. Nothing else."

"What else would I do in. Oh. Yes. Of course." She has to laugh at this but her husband's face has become quite red with embarrassment.

As soon as Dr. Clarkson has left, Robert sits down next her again and takes her hand. "You'll make it. I won't lose you. You get to live."

"Yes. You won't be alone for the rest of your life. It seems you are stuck with me for some time."

"I want to be stuck with you forever." He begins to cry now and she puts his arms around him. It surprises her that she has enough strength to actually do this but Dr. Clarkson's news have set some energy free and she wants to hold on to her husband. "You have no idea how much I want to be stuck with you forever. I love you and I couldn't live without you." She is afraid that he is right, that he really couldn't live without her, which makes her survival all the more important because a world with Robert in it but with him being depressed would not be a good world. If she were to die, their girls would need Robert more than ever. All three of them are grown up, they are all lovely, independent, outspoken young women, they are all they could have ever wished for in their daughters and her chests bursts with pride for all three of them. But they are also still their little girls, who sometimes need their parents' support and if Robert became depressed after her death, those girls would have lost both of their parents and that would break them, all three of them. And seeing their daughters break would make Robert even more depressed.

"I love you too and I am glad you won't have to live without me."

He puts his arms around her too now and they keep holding onto each other.

He wants to hold on to his wife forever, he never wants to let go of her. He has never been as scared as he was the last few weeks. He sometimes thinks it is a little silly that he is so attached to her, so dependent on her that he couldn't live without her. He is the Earl of Grantham after all, he is a powerful man, certainly not the most powerful man in the country, but he is up there, in the House of Lords and he owns one of the most beautiful and largest estates in England, he is popular amongst his peers and well respected by his staff and tenants but all of that means nothing to him compared to what his wife means to him and if he lost her, everything else would lose its meaning too.

"Would you mind if I had dinner here with you tonight?"

"I'd love it if you did." She smiles at him in a way that sends a shiver down his spine and that smile brings home to him that in all likelihood she will get well again, that they will go back to what they were before the rift was created between them, that he eventually will kiss her again, that he eventually will make love to her again.

He spends the rest of the evening in their room and sometime after dinner their girls come to them to see how they are doing and Cora asks them to stay for a while and except for the fact that they aren't in the drawing room, it seems like a normal evening and it makes him very happy. When their girls leave and Cora falls asleep, he looks at her and thinks how lucky he has been, what a fortunate coincidence it had been that his father's stupidity in the management of the estate turned into something so wonderful, that the woman his father had more or less forced him to marry to save the estate had turned out to be the love of his life, that she had fallen for him too and that she made him, still makes him happy, so very happy.

He falls asleep without being afraid of the next day for the first time in weeks.


	5. Chapter 5

AN: The second part in italics is a longish flashback again.

I think this is my favorite chapter so far, but let me know what you think!

Kat

* * *

He left his wife's bedroom early, he had to leave. His original plan had been to stay with her until she woke up, he made that plan last night and anticipated the happy expression on her face when she saw him still in their bed upon waking. But the 'in their bed' part had been the problem. The three days of sleep that Cora had gone through seemed to have released some energy and that energy expressed itself by Cora moving around in her sleep quite a lot. He didn't mind, he is used to it, he has slept next to her for almost thirty years and has gotten so used to her moving around that he wakes up when she doesn't, but sometime during the night she had moved onto his side of the bed and they had ended up tangled around each other and when he woke up, he realized that sleeping wrapped around his wife had had quite a pronounced effect on him and he had fled their bed. Dr. Clarkson had said that it would take months until, well he doesn't even want to think about it, he doesn't really know how to get through it but he knows that he will and this is much, much better than fearing for Cora's life. He'd take a few months of not getting what he wants over being afraid of losing her any day.

He sits at his desk and his eyes fall on the pictures that he keeps on the desk. There is one of his daughters, which miraculously has all of them smiling at the same time. The picture was taken in September 1911 in Newport, the last really carefree, happy summer that they had. He longs for a summer like that. His daughters happy and without worries about possible future husbands. The other picture is a picture of Cora and him taken on their wedding day. It is not the official wedding photo, in fact the photographer had wanted to throw this one away, but Cora had wanted to keep it. The picture was taken when neither one of them knew that they were being photographed. They are looking at each other and they are both smiling. He had been embarrassed by that picture, because that was not what a wedding picture was supposed to look like and he had asked Cora to keep it hidden where he would never find it. He hadn't seen it for seven months until he found it on his desk, framed, with a note lying next to it.

_Robert, when I saw that picture I knew that we would find love. That's why I never gave up on making you fall in love with me. And I am glad that I was successful. We will have a wonderful marriage from now on and I love you too. Cora _

He had told her that he loved her for the first time the night before and to this day it is still one of his happiest memories. It had taken him far too long to realize his feelings for her and he had asked her why she never gave up on him but she hadn't answered, she had kissed him senseless instead and when he found the picture and the note on his desk the next day, his heart had skipped more than just one beat. The note is hidden in the frame, behind the picture, but while everyone who has ever had a closer look at his desk has seen picture, Cora and him are the only ones who know about the note. Thinking about finding the picture and the note and what it means to him and that he almost lost of all that drives him to tears and he is startled when he feels someone place a hand on his shoulder.

"Papa, are you all right?" She thinks he isn't. He looks as if has cried.

"What? Oh Mary, I'm sorry. I didn't see you."

"I suppose not. What happened?"

"Nothing." She doesn't believe him. She has only ever seen him cry twice so far. When he told her that her grandfather, his father, had died and when she walked into her parents' bedroom right after her mother had lost the baby.

"It can't be 'nothing', because you have obviously cried. And you don't cry for nothing. You keep your emotions bottled up, just like me. What is it?"

"Nothing."

"Is everything all right with Mama?"

"Yes," her father says but there are tears in his eyes again.

"Papa, tell me, please. If she is going to die then I want to know." She wants to know because she would need enough time to prepare for it and she would want to say a proper goodbye.

"She won't die."

"Then what has you so upset?"

"Mary, you can't tell anyone about this."

"I won't." Her father is scaring her.

"When we told you and your sisters that your mother's recovery was almost certain, that was a lie. It was anything but certain. We didn't want to scare you but it didn't look good. Dr. Clarkson only told us yesterday that your mother's chances of survival were very good. But it looked very bleak for a time and I couldn't stop myself from imagining what my life would be like without your mother and it was a horrible prospect. And when Dr. Clarkson told us yesterday, that against all odds, your mother would make it, I just broke down. I was so relieved. I am relieved beyond words. And it just hit me again that I almost lost her and that would have been, well I don't want to think about what that would have been."

"Papa, why didn't you tell us?"

"Because you all have enough on your plates. You didn't have to worry about that as well."

"But we are talking about our mother dying." She can't believe it. She wonders if Sybil knew, if maybe Dr. Clarkson told her or if Sybil's medical knowledge is good enough for her to have found out by herself. But her darling sister wouldn't have told her because Sybil thinks that both her sisters have enough problems of their own, which just goes to show what a wonderful person Sybil is because in Mary's view, Sybil is the one of them with the biggest problem. She wants to marry Tom and Tom wants to marry her but the family is so against their marriage. Sybil does not want to sever ties with them; she loves all her family, a love that has shown itself over the past few weeks by the endless care she has given to their mother and by the fact that she hasn't mentioned Tom once to their father for fear of upsetting him. "All he should think about now is Mama. He doesn't need to worry about me leaving with the chauffeur," Sybil had said and Mary had hugged her then and now she wonders if Sybil carried the additional burden of knowing that their mother might die after all.

"We would have told you today. But all three of you are working so hard to help us and we just didn't want to cast more gloom on this house than was absolutely necessary."

"When will she be well again?"

"It will take months."

"However long it takes Papa, Matthew and I will run Downton for as long as you want us to. When Mama is well again, take her on vacation somewhere, we don't mind. And neither will Edith or Sybil. Edith has helped me quite a lot actually and Sybil has promised to stay here until Mama is well again."

"Mary, do you know where the chauffeur is?" Her father should call him Tom, they should all call him Tom. Her sister is in love with him and she will marry him and they should not just accept that, they should be happy for Sybil, happy that she will marry such a good man, a man who has apparently waited for her to say 'yes' for two years and who has now again waited for weeks, who is prepared to wait for months so that Sybil can take care of her mother. Sybil and Tom deserve her to fight for them, both of them, and so she decides to finally support them.

"You mean Tom?"

"Yes."

"Staying at the Grantham Arms."

Her father leaves without saying anything else and she runs after him. "Papa, what are you doing?"

"I don't know, but I need to talk to him."

"Papa, no. You are very upset, don't make things worse." She is afraid of what her father will do to Tom. He certainly won't hurt him physically, she is sure of that, but she isn't sure the he won't chase him away.

"Mary, I just want to talk to him. I won't chase him away. I don't want to lose Sybil, so I will be civil. I promise."

"Thank you."

When her father has left, she goes into the library and her eyes fall on a picture on his desk. It is a picture taken at her parents' wedding, but not the official picture that all their relatives have on display somewhere. This picture must have been taken of them unawares because they look at each other and they are both smiling. She has of course seen this picture before, she knows it is one of her father's favorites, but she never noticed how her father looks at her mother on that picture and taking a closer look makes her doubt whether he really only fell in love with her mother after the wedding. At that moment it hits her that her mother had been a lot closer to dying these past weeks than she or anyone else had been told and she can't keep her composure anymore and so she begins to sob uncontrollably. She feels someone wrapping arms around her and pulling her close but she just can't stop to cry.

"Mary, whatever it is, it will be all right." She looks up and sees that it is Matthew who is holding her. Who else but Matthew would find her in such a state. Who else but Matthew would see her so weak. But it doesn't really matter because Matthew despises her anyway. They work together well, the house and the estate are running rather smoothly, considering that both its Lord and Lady are unavailable and have left next to no instructions. In fact, both Carson and Mrs. Hughes have already told her that they have nothing to complain about, something that makes her rather proud. But although they spend hours together every day, they never talk about anything but the house and the estate. Neither Carlisle or any other personal matter have been talked about by them.

"I am sorry Matthew. My father just told me, he asked me not to tell anyone else, and it has turned out the worries were unnecessary. But it is just hard to take in."

Matthew takes the picture from her hands and looks at it. "It's a beautiful picture," he says. "And it makes me wonder whether your father really didn't love your mother when they got married."

"Yes. Maybe he just didn't see what was in front of him. That seems to be family trait."

"I am afraid it is."

He smiles at her weakly and puts his arms back around her. She has no idea why he does that but it makes her feel secure. She puts her head on his shoulder and her arms around his waist. "I am so sorry Matthew. I wish I had accepted your proposal right away. I wish I had realized what a wonderful man you are the moment I saw you for the first time. Sometimes I can't help but think about what our lives would be like if I hadn't been so stupid. We'd have been happily married for years now, we'd probably have children. Two cute little children, a boy with your hair and my eyes and a girl with my hair and your eyes. Maybe I would be pregnant with our third child, now that the war is behind us. I'd be driving you up the wall but you'd still treat me like a queen. We'd spend time with our children every day, we'd take them for walks and play with them and you'd keep telling me to be careful, to not move around too much, to take care of myself and the new baby. And every time you told me we'd kiss."

He pulls her closer to him and rests his head on hers. It sends a jolt through her body and she wants to stay like this for the rest of her life.

"Mary, there is no reason why we can't have what you have just described." The velvet in his voice make her weak in the knees, but maybe it is also what he said or a combination of both.

"There are hundreds of reasons."

"Not one of them is important. There is only one thing you need to do. Sack Carlisle."

"I can't. The scandal"

"The scandal we could deal with together. With your mother so sick no one expects the family to go to London for the season anyway and that is the only place where the scandal would have any impact at all."

"My parents"

"Your parents want you to sack Carlisle too. Your father told me so. They'd prefer the scandal over you being stuck in a marriage you didn't want."

"He knows about Pamuk then?"

"Your mother told him. But don't worry, he has forgiven for you."

"What about Lavinia?"

"She is dead, Mary. And I don't think I would have gone through with the wedding. I was relieved when she and Mother decided to move it. It gave me more time to reconsider. Your grandmother's words kept coming back to me. She said 'Marriage is a long business. There's no getting out of it for our kind of people. You will live 40, 50 years with one of these women. Just make sure it's the right one.' You are the right one, Mary."

"You made a vow to Lavinia."

"Yes, but that was driven by guilt. I still feel guilty about all of it. But I've watched your father for the past weeks, I've seen him struggle with your mother's possible death and I've realized how much he must love her. I talked to him about it and he told me that he had been happily married for more than 29 years now and that he wouldn't give that up for anything. Then he said that if I had the chance of that too, I should take that chance, no matter how high the risk or how dire the consequences."

"My father said that to you?"

"Yes. He was very uncomfortable while he said it, but he did say it. And he is right. Both your grandmother and father are right. Marriage is a long business but if you are married to the right person, it'll make you very happy. Your parents are living proof of that. And it will make you able to brave all kinds of storms. Even the storm created by a scandal about a foreign diplomat dying in your future wife's bed."

He has called her his future wife, something she wants to be desperately and so she finally makes her decision. She will sack Richard and brace the scandal and probably take her family down with her in the process. But apparently her mother wants her to sack Carlisle anyway, her father told Matthew to marry for love, no matter how dire the consequences, Sybil certainly won't care and Edith and her Granny know about her and Pamuk, she just has no idea how they will react to the scandal, but she hopes that they won't be too mad at her, although she supposes that at least her Granny will be happy about her marrying the heir. "You've kept your part of the bargain, I'll keep mine. I'll ask Carlisle to come here and then I will tell him. I can't tell him on the telephone, he deserves more than that."

"And then?"

"And then I will pray that the man I so stupidly refused will propose to me again."

"If he did propose, what would you say?" She hopes that this means that he will propose again, she hopes for it so much. Matthew literally clings to her now and there was hope in his voice, she is sure of it, so she decides to reassure him.

"Yes. I'd say yes right away. Without thinking about it. Because I love him. I've loved him for years."

"I think chances for a renewed proposal are good. Because he loves you too." Those two sentences have made her happier than she has been in years, maybe happier than she has ever been. Matthew loves her. She doesn't know whether he loves her still or again but that is a conversation for another day and it doesn't really matter to her anyway. All that matters is that he loves her now and that he wants to propose to her again.

Matthew places a kiss on her head and they hold onto each other for a while longer until Carson opens the door and says "Lady Mary, her ladyship is asking for" But the butler then realizes what he sees and says "I am sorry my lady."

"Please, Carson, there is no need to apologize," she replies while she reluctantly lets go of Matthew. "I'll go to her ladyship now. Sir Richard will probably come here some time tomorrow but it is very unlikely that he'll stay the night, so please don't go through any trouble." The butler smiles at her and says "Very good, my lady." She leaves room but doesn't close the door and she can here Carson ask Matthew "Might I be so impertinent as to ask whether congratulations are in order, Mr. Matthew?" She has to chuckle at that. Matthew should be addressed as 'Mr. Crawley', but for some reason the staff all call him 'Mr. Matthew' and it seems to be a term of endearment. Considering how little pleased Carson was about Matthew being the heir, he has come quite a long way in his affection for Matthew. She has to laugh at her thoughts now, as if the staff would have any sort of affection for the family but maybe Carson actually does, he has always been supportive of her after all.

"There aren't in order yet. But they will be soon. Very soon."

"Mama, you asked for me?" Her mother is sitting upright on her bed and there is even a little color on her face.

"Yes, I need some company, Mary. I woke up about half an hour ago, your father was gone and there is nothing for me to do but stare at either the ceiling or the wall because reading makes my head hurt after about three minutes and I am not allowed to walk around. To be honest I doubt that I could. I hope I didn't pry you away from anything too important."

She laughs at this and her mother raises her eyebrows.

"Mary?"

"You did pry me away from something rather nice. But what I was doing was something I will be able to do as often as I like in the future, so I don't mind."

"You need to explain yourself." Her mother says this in the same tone she used when Mary was still a child and had done something she wasn't supposed to do and for the first time in her life, it makes her happy to hear her mother demand an explanation that way.

"Did Papa tell you about the bargain I struck with Matthew?"

"Yes, he did. But he didn't know whether you had kept your part of it."

"Not until now. But I will telephone Sir Richard later and ask him to come here tomorrow. I will then tell him that I am not going to get married. At least not to him."

Her mother's face breaks into a smile now.

"But you are going to get married."

"Yes." She cannot contain her own smile any more.

"By the look on your face I suppose that it will be to Matthew."

"Yes, Mama."

"Oh my darling girl. I am so happy for you."

"Thank you."

_Her mother squeezes her hand now and she knows that the wall that the death of Kemal Pamuk had created between them has finally been torn down. There had already been quite a few holes in that wall, but now it is gone and it is a feeling of elation for her. For the first few months after her mother had helped her return Pamuk's body to his room, she had had the feeling that while her mother may not have hated her, she didn't feel anything but disappointment for her. It had become gradually better over time and once the war had started and her mother had seen how much she suffered because of Matthew, how it had broken her heart when Matthew had announced his engagement to Lavinia, her mother had actually begun to feel sorry for her and the disappointment had vanished. And then there had been that day when they hadn't been sure what had happened to Matthew when she had found her mother in the room that used to be the nursery. She had only walked past there to get to another part of the house, but when she hurt noises in the room, she had walked into it and found her mother standing at the crib. Her mother hadn't really been crying but she looked defeated and in a move that would have been by far more typical for Sybil she had hugged her mother. "If Matthew doesn't make it, your father will have lost two sons in less than four years. He loves Matthew like a son and he loved your brother, even if that poor boy never lived."_

_"__Mama, I am so sorry. I really am. It still hurts, doesn't it?"_

_"__Sometimes. There are times when I wonder about him, ask myself what it would be like to have him here with us, I wonder whether he would have been more like your father or more like me and he will always have a place in my heart."_

_"__I wish he had lived. I always wanted a brother." Her mother had kissed her on the cheek then and said "Thank you for saying that, my darling girl." It had been the first time her mother had called her that since the night of Pamuk's death and it had almost broken down the wall between them that has now crashed to the ground._

"Well, I am certainly not bored anymore. We need to plan a wedding."

"Mama, I think you will need to plan Sybil's wedding first. Papa left about an hour ago to talk to Tom and he promised he wouldn't chase him away, so what else can he be doing but to tell Tom that he should marry Sybil sometime soon and here?"


	6. Chapter 6

When he opens the door after the knock and sees Sybil's father he is quite shocked to say the least.

"Your Lordship"

"May I come in, please?"

He is completely taken aback by this. The last time the Earl was here, he pushed through the door and offered him money to let Sybil go. And now he is friendly, even polite.

"Please, Tom?" The Earl calling him by his first name? He is either dreaming or Sybil's father is playing a very bad joke on him.

"Yes, of course."

"I came here to apologize. For trying to bribe you to let Sybil go. I shouldn't have done that."

"No. You shouldn't have. But I accept your apology all the same."

"Thank you for that." The Earl looks around himself, as if he was taking in his surroundings for the first time.

"Staying here this long must be costing you a lot of money."

"I can afford it, I don't need you to pay for it." This is not a lie, he can afford it quite easily and the reason for this is that he was paid rather well by the Crawleys or the Granthams or whichever way he is supposed to refer to them now. So he doesn't need the Earl's help. He doesn't want it. The Earl certainly is a decent and fair employer but he will not let that stuck up prick help him. Because he is a rather less decent father. He should be happy that his youngest daughter has found love, but all he cares about is that there won't be a scandal, he is sure about that, although Sybil has told him repeatedly that that wasn't true.

The Earl now sits down and then leans forward and puts his arms on his upper legs, a position completely inappropriate in front of a servant. Or anyone who is not immediate family, really and he wonders what this means.

"That was not what I was aiming at, although I'd gladly do it if you wanted me to. No, Tom. I was going to offer you to stay at the Abbey. Cora won't be well for quite some time. She will in all likelihood become well again, but it'll take months. And as long as she isn't well, Sybil can't leave."

"No, she doesn't want to, she told me so. She wants to stay until her ladyship is completely healthy again. And I admire her for it. She is very devoted to her mother." She really is and Sybil's obvious love for her mother has led him to think about her ladyship in a far kinder way than he thinks about his lordship, in fact he thinks that he might over time come to like her. He will never agree with her being a Countess, but he might like her all the same.

"Sybil is very devoted to those she loves and that includes you. She loves with all her heart, something she has certainly got from her mother. And she loves you and there is no reason for me to deny it, in fact your staying here all this time has led me to think that she made a rather good choice."

"What?" He can't believe what he is hearing and the Earl chuckles at his outburst. He is about to be indignant because the Earl laughs about him and he certainly does so because the Earl considers himself to be the better man and Tom is about to fight him on it when he sees the expression on the Earl's face which speaks more of understanding than anything else.

"Tom, you obviously love my daughter and she loves you. You are a good man, I know that, you are decent and true to her and you don't want to marry her to make a point, you wouldn't have waited for her that long then. I really can't expect you to stay here for months on end and neither can I ask you and Sybil to be separated for months. So I am asking to come to the Abbey. You'll get one of the guest rooms and as soon as Cora is well enough to attend a wedding, you can get married. And move out of the guest room." He wonders if this some sort of trick or a very cruel joke. Maybe the Earl has got a plan on how he could frame him for something, something like stealing or ruining Sybil's virtue or something like that. He can't move to the Abbey, it is too dangerous. But he needs to get to the bottom of this.  
"I know this sounds terribly impertinent, but what made you change your mind?" The Earl looks at him as if he was contemplating his answer, but he doesn't look offended, which surprises Tom to no end. A servant is not allowed to ask questions. Although a nagging voice in his mind tells him that that is not entirely true.

"Cora. Or rather her illness. I thought I was going to lose her, for weeks and weeks I was afraid that every word I spoke to her would be the last one ever exchanged between us, that every time I held her hand would be the last time I touched her, that every kiss I gave her would be the last one I would ever give her. I have never been so scared in my life. Not when my father died twenty years before his time and I became the Earl two decades earlier than I should have, not when I held Mary for the first time and realized that I had become a father without knowing how to be one, not when we were discovered on patrol behind enemy lines in South Africa and twenty weapons were pointed at us. Because I could live with all of that, I could even deal with being shot at as long as I wasn't killed, because I knew that Cora would be there for me. But living without her, I just couldn't, I can't fathom. And the reason I can't fathom it is because I love her so much and she makes me so happy. And that is all I want for my daughters. All I want for them is to be as happy in their marriages as I am in mine, because as the last weeks have taught me, that is all that is important. And you are the man who will make Sybil that happy and all I can do is thank you for it." This speech wasn't calculated it was open and emotional and impulsive and he is almost sure that what the Earl said came from the heart. But he still doesn't trust him, he can't trust an aristocrat.

"That was quite a sentimental speech for an aristocrat."

"It was quite a sentimental speech for any English man, but I think you deserved to hear it. I'd understand if you didn't trust me, so I had to explain to you why I changed my mind. But please don't tell anyone about what I just said. Except for Sybil, I won't ask you to keep secrets from your future wife."

"Thank you." He doesn't know what else to say. This is not the man who wanted to pay him to leave Sybil alone. Or maybe it is, because this is a man who obviously loves his daughters very much and it dawns on him that the Earl did not offer him money in exchange for Sybil because he wanted to keep a scandal at bay but because he loves his daughter and only wants the best for her and until very recently that man thought that living in some version of Downton Abbey was what was best for her, what would make her happiest.

"So, will you come?"

He doesn't want to; he does not want to be a guest at the Abbey. It is not what he imagined his life to be like; he doesn't want to live like that for a single day, let alone months. If he and Sybil got married and they still lived at the Abbey, he'd be treated like a member of the family by the staff. They'd do so very grudgingly, they'd talk about him behind his back, but they would treat him like a member of 'the family'. He can't become part of an aristocratic family; that goes against all his principles. He is a socialist, he doesn't believe in the aristocracy, not one bit. But he has worked for this family for five years and if he is honest, then he has to admit that this family is not what he thought an aristocratic family would be like, they are much more liberal and much more loving. Yes, the Earl had raged when Sybil had come home from the count all those years ago, but she had been hurt, that had been the reason precisely why she had been forbidden to go in the first place. And which father wouldn't have raged at a daughter who had put herself in danger like that? Yes, the Dowager seems to look down on everyone below her, but that is only an act of pretense. When driving her and Mrs. Crawley home, he often heard the two of them fighting about something that the Countess had said or done and it had always been the Dowager who had been on her daughter-in-law's side. On the other hand, the Dowager had also more than once defended something that Mrs. Crawley had said or done just as fiercely to any other member of the family.

He had often had glimpses at the Earl and the Countess when he had to drive them home form dinner parties. Late at night they both tend to not play the roles that society expects them to play anymore and he has heard all kinds of different conversations between them, some about trifles and some that went a lot deeper than that. He heard them talk about their family and it was obvious that they both loved their family, he had heard them talk about politics and it was obvious that the American Countess was much more liberal than her husband, but it had been just as obvious that the Earl listened to her, that he took her seriously. He remembers the first time he heard the Countess oppose her husband on something, he forgot what it was, but he remembers thinking that she was in for a brushing off, but the Earl had said "Oh really? I never looked at it that way. You've given me something to think about." It had been a long drive and eventually they had stopped talking and he was sure that at least one of them had fallen asleep. When he looked into the rear view mirror he had seen that the Countess was asleep, her head on her husband's shoulder, his arm wrapped around her. That had taken him by surprise because he had never expected a love match in such a family. Sybil had of course later told him that her parents' marriage hadn't always been a love match and he had replied 'I knew it, people like that never marry for love,' to which Sybil had replied 'No, my parents didn't marry for love, but the fell in love eventually. But my father's parents, Granny and Grandpa, they married for love.' It had been hard for him to believe, but it had been true, he knows that because he once heard the Dowager talk about her deceased husband to Mrs. Crawley and it had been obvious that she must have loved him very much.

He remembers taking Mrs. Crawley and Mr. Crawley, whom he can't help but think of Mr. Matthew, a term rather of endearment than position that the staff have coined for him, home, discussing Mr. Matthew's relationship to Lady Mary. He has been rooting for them since coming to the house, because as cold-hearted as she seems to be, Lady Mary is rather soft on the inside. He remembers taking her to the train station insanely early in the morning to say goodbye to Mr. Matthew, remembers her crying her heart out in the car.

He remembers taking the Dowager and the Countess to some form of social call and them discussing what to do about Lady Edith, how to make her happy. They both were genuinely concerned.

And then he remembers Sybil saying 'My Papa is really not that bad. He is a little stuck up, but it's because of the world he grew up in, has always lived in. But really, he is quite a nice man.'

He gets prove of that when the Earl gently shakes his shoulder.

"Tom? Are you all right?" He looks at the Earl blearily.

"Yes. I was just lost in thoughts."

"That happens. So, are you going to come?"

"Won't the family object?"

"The only two who'd have a right to object would be Cora and Sybil and both of them will be thrilled, if for different reasons. My mother will make a few sharp comments, but we've all been on the receiving end of those, especially Cora. Mary is a pragmatist if there ever was one and she has accepted Sybil's decision, so she will think you staying with us a natural consequence and she will give you a chance. Edith doesn't care one way or the other. Matthew will be thrilled too; he thinks it is ridiculous that you stay here anyway, and his mother agrees with him on that."

He has to chuckle at this because in two or three sentences, the Earl has given him a perfect description of each and every member of the family and it just goes to show how much the Earl cares about all of them, that the reason he wants to protect them is love and nothing else. And if the most stuck-up member of the family is so kind hearted, shouldn't he, the chauffeur, give all of them a chance?

"Yes. I'll come with you." He has run out of excuses.

"Good. You will need a set of tails and a dinner jacket. And two or three new suits." The snobbish Earl is back and with that the rebellious chauffeur also returns.

"I will not put on those costumes of oppression. You can't make me wear them." He will win this fight, he is determined to win it.

"No Tom, I can't make you do anything, you are right about that. But I can give you advice. You are about to marry into an aristocratic family and there are rules in such a family, rules you should stick to, rules it won't hurt you to stick to. I'll pay for the costumes as you say, you can leave them at Downton if you wish once you two leave, but while you are at Downton you should play by our rules, at least to some extent. It will save you a lot of trouble and discussion with several family members and especially with Sybil."

"You've stopped to call her Lady Sybil when talking to me." He had noticed that before of course, he noticed that the Earl didn't use titles for any of his family members, he even quite plainly referred to his wife by her first name. It had surprised him but he hadn't dared to question him in it until a second ago.

"Yes. Tom, you will be a member of this family sooner or later, and I hope it will be sooner rather than later because as I said, you will have to wait until Cora is well enough to attend a wedding and the sooner that happens, the better. I don't call Sybil 'Lady Sybil' when I talk to family members. We are not living in the 18th century; this is not a Jane Austen novel."

"You've read Jane Austen?" He wants to bite his tongue off after having asked that question, it was impertinent and uncalled for and if he wants to give Sybil's family a chance, he has to be a little nicer to them. But to his astonishment the Earl doesn't seem to be offended.

"Cora likes her quite a lot, so I read everything Ms. Austen ever put into writing and published. It is bearable. Except for Pride and Prejudice, I quite like that one. I like Mr. Darcy."

Because you want to be like Mr. Darcy, he thinks but manages to keep that thought to himself. But he will tell Sybil later that night. At the Abbey.

"All right. I'll get the clothes and come to Downton."

"I'll telephone the tailor and tell him that you will be coming there today. I'll ask him to send the bills to me. Until tonight then." The Earl gets up and makes to leave and turns his back at him.

"Thank you, your Lordship. For coming here and being so honest." The Earl holds in his step and then turns towards him once more.

"Tom, don't call me 'your lordship' or 'my lord'. That is what servants call me and you are not a servant anymore."

"What am I supposed to call you then?" The Earl takes a moment to consider, obviously he has not thought this through.

"Robert. Call me Robert. Call everyone by their first names, except for my mother. Call her Lady Grantham."

"I can't call you or anyone else except Sybil by their first name."

"Why not? It's what Matthew does."

"Matthew is a Crawley, he is your heir."

"Yes. But hopefully he also is my future son-in-law. I have not given up hope on that."

"I don't think there is reason to give up hope on that."

"We agree on that at least. I'll see you at dinner, Tom." And with that, the Earl, Lord Grantham, Robert, takes his leave.

When he gets home he seeks out Sybil and tells her what Tom has agreed to do. His daughter drops the books she is holding in her hands and flings herself at him. "Thank you Papa. I love you."

"I'm sure there is one thing or another you want to prepare right now, so I'll leave you to it."

"Thank you again." He wants to leave but then thinks better of it.

"Sybil, be careful. I am not saying this because I mistrust you or Tom because I don't. But I am your father and I love you and I wouldn't feel comfortable if I had not said it. I am sure that thanks to your far too outspoken aunt and your rather liberal Mama you and your sisters know exactly how you came into this world. And I am relieved that you do, but don't do anything that might have serious consequences before you are married."

"We won't. Papa, I am a little rebel but I am not that rebellious. And neither is Tom. When we were at that hotel" He doesn't want to hear it. He has forgiven her for running of, she thought better of it in the end after all, but he does not want to know what she and Tome or did or did not do at that hotel. He trusts them both and doesn't think that it was anything too upsetting but Sybil is his baby girl, his youngest child and he doesn't want to think about her doing very grown up things, quite disregarding the fact that both he and Cora were three years younger than Sybil is now when they got married. But that was them and it was different.

"Sybil, don't. Please. I have given you my blessings but that doesn't mean that I want to know what you and Tom do when you are alone, and I especially do not want to hear anything about it once you are married. If you have any questions, go to your mother."

"She says it is a lot of fun." This makes him chuckle, inwardly. It is very like Cora to make such a blunt statement about it but it is probably for the best that she did not tell their girls that it was merely a duty they had to do, it will make the beginnings of their marriage much easier if they do not think about it as a duty. But still, this is the last thing he wants to discuss with his daughters.

"Sybil, I do not want to hear about it."

"Sorry, Papa." His little girl then gives him a kiss on the cheek and leaves.


	7. Chapter 7

He goes upstairs to see his wife and he can hear her and Mary laugh before he has even reached the door. He hopes it is a good sign, not just for Cora's well-being but also for Mary's. He has felt quite sorry for his eldest daughter for years and he wants her to be happy. It is what she deserves and he has been worrying about her. He is sure that she had hoped that Mathew would return her feelings and while he knows for a fact that Matthew does, so far the boy does not seem to have come to his senses. But maybe he has done so now. When he opens the door to the bedroom both his wife and their eldest daughter look at him and he marvels at how alike they look. Mary maybe a lot more like him than she is like her mother, but she looks almost exactly like Cora. Mary gets up the moment he enters the room and says "Well, I better make that telephone call now."

"Yes. Good luck." His daughter walks past him and just like Sybil did only minutes earlier, Mary too gives him a kiss on the cheek and says "I love you."

"What has gotten into her?" he asks Cora. Mary hasn't told him that she loved him in years. He of course knows that she does, he would never doubt it and it doesn't bother him that she never says it because it is just not like her to say it.

"I've told her that I told you about Pamuk and that you weren't mad at her."

"I thought we'd agreed that I talk to her about that." He is secretly glad though that Cora has taken this from him, he wouldn't have known how to go about it and he is sure that his wife found the right words, she always does, she is so much better at talking to their daughters about personal matters than he is. He loves those girls with all his heart but there are things he can't talk about and this would have been very uncomfortable for him, considering that what Mary did with Pamuk is exactly what he does not want to think about his girls doing.

"Yes, we did. But she needed to know now. That telephone call she is going to make is to invite Richard Carlisle here for tomorrow. She'll break it off with him then."

"Finally. How did you get her to do that?"

"I didn't. It was Matthew. She said that he had kept his part of the bargain and that it was now time that she kept hers."

"Hm. I hoped there was more to it."

"There is more to it, Robert. He told her he'd propose to her again once she had sacked Carlisle. And she has already told him that she'll say yes." This almost makes him dance with joy. He hoped for it so much, both Mary and Matthew deserve happiness. Those two have been through so much that they should be happy for the rest of their lives, they should be as happy as he is.

"Finally. It has taken them long enough."  
"Yes." The smile on his wife's face is one of the most beautiful he has ever seen and he wishes he could kiss her now, really kiss her, not just a peck on the cheek. "Darling, I want to kiss you too, but I am afraid I can't."

"How did you?"

"Thirty years of happy marriage." He kisses the hand he's been holding the whole time and her smile becomes even more lovingly.

"Tom is coming here. I talked to him."

"You invited him to dinner?"

"I invited him to stay. Sybil promised she would stay until you were on your feet again and that will be months. We can't keep them apart for that long. I told Tom he could marry her as soon as you were well enough to attend a wedding."

"He agreed to that?"

"After some discussion, yes."

"Discussion. I hope you didn't scare the poor boy too much." He has to chuckle about Cora calling Tom 'the poor boy'. He often thinks of Matthew as 'the boy', although Matthew is 33 years old and he wonders if he will ever think of Tom as 'the boy' too, although after the discussion he had with Tom in the afternoon he doesn't think it unlikely. Tom really seems to have a good head on his shoulders, he is well read, intelligent and not afraid to ask questions, in short he is quite a lot like Matthew.

"I didn't scare him at all. I just talked to him and we discussed some things. On a very friendly level. 'The boy' as you say has a good head on his shoulders and he really does love our little girl."

"It is what matters the most."

"It is the only thing that matters, Cora. If your illness has taught me one thing, it is that love is all that matters, that it should be put above all."

"I'm glad you see it that way."

"You are tired, aren't you?"

"Yes, darling. I'm sorry."

"Why don't you lie down and I read to you until you are asleep?"

"Would you?"

"Yes."

He stays in her room long after she has fallen asleep. He contemplates his talk with Tom and realizes that some of Tom's answers and questions had bordered on cheeky and he is about to be indignant but then realizes that the boy probably reacted the way he did because he himself had been very open with him and he finds that he doesn't regret it. If Tom really is to be his son-in-law then he will have to get to know him. He doesn't want a son-in-law he only sees on Christmas and New Year's Eve because that would mean seeing the girl who married him only on Christmas and New Year's Eve and that certainly would be very hard on him. He sometimes wonders how Cora's mother can stand living on the other side of the ocean, how she can deal with hardly knowing her daughter anymore, but then he thinks that Cora never had a very close relationship to either one of her parents. She often jokingly says that her mother is too American for her but he thinks that maybe it is true and Cora's mother really has become too American for her or rather that Cora has become to English. He is of course glad that Cora harbors no wish to return to America but he sometimes wonders if she doesn't miss her family. He asks her about from time to time and she always says that her mother, brother and favorite aunt all still write to her regularly and that she can live with that very well because her children and husband are at Downton. He strokes her hair now and she murmurs something in reply. He halts his movement for a second and she says "don't stop" more or less audibly and so he doesn't stop.

When the dressing gong rings he leaves Cora although he doesn't really want to, but he can't stay away from the dinner table the first night that Tom is there. When he gets downstairs all three of his girls and Tom and Matthew are already there and true to his promise, Tom wears a dinner jacket. He doesn't look as uncomfortable as Robert had thought although that could be due to that fact that Matthew has involved Tom in a conversation about the estate. He has to smile at that and wonders if he will be the laughing stock of society, allowing his eldest daughter to marry a lawyer and his youngest to daughter to marry a chauffeur. But he'd much rather be the laughing stock of society than the father of unhappily married daughters. Neither Mary nor Edith seem to be too fazed by Tom being there, on the contrary they both act welcomingly towards him too and he is thankful for it because as Tom will be a member of the family soon, he should be treated as such. When the girls go through to the drawing room after dinner and he stays behind with Tom and Matthew, he decides that now is as good a time as ever to give them the 'father-of-the-bride' talk and he can give it to both of them this way, so he'll only have to do it once.

"Listen, you two. I am not going to give you a long speech now but there are a few things I'd like to say. We, that is Cora and I, love our girls very much and all we really want for them is to be happy. But once they are married, they can only ever be really happy if they are happily married. I know that neither one of you would purposely hurt them, don't think that I don't know that, but there are a few crucial points to a happy marriage. Don't drag out fights. If you disagree, say so but don't make a point of it. Fight for what you think is right, but never for just being right. Be open with your feelings, don't hide anything. And if you come across a rough patch, don't give up. Fix what has been broken. That's all I have to say." He gets up and leaves the room without looking back at them.

"So you are going to marry Mary?" He has to smile at Matthew who looks utterly taken aback.

"We've talked about it, we will eventually but she hasn't even sacked Carlisle yet. But I suppose that Mary told Cora and that Cora told Robert. By the way, if there is something you don't want too many people to know about, always take into consideration that Robert and Cora tell each other everything. Once you've told one of them, you've told the other."

"And it is the same with you and Mary."

"It will eventually be like that, yes."

"Matthew, I am really happy for you. I've been rooting for you and Mary right from the start."

"Thank you. So have you moved here for good?" For good? Is Matthew crazy? He could never live at Downton for good. Admittedly, dinner had been a lot easier to get through than he had thought or rather feared, but it had only been Matthew, Mary, Edith, Robert, Sybil and him. He supposes that Cora wouldn't have made things more complicated but the Dowager certainly would have done so, maybe even Matthew's mother would have complicated things and he doesn't even care to think about what it will be like when there are guests. Or what his mother and brother would say if he stayed at the Abbey permanently.

"No. Just for the time being."

"All right. Should we join the others?" He isn't sure whether Matthew believes him, but he doesn't want to fight him on it because he thinks that maybe, Matthew could become his friend and he needs a friend in this family.

When they go into the drawing room Sybil is talking to both of her sister about women's rights to vote and miraculously they all seem to agree on it. Their father is watching them with a smile on his face and looks as if he actually enjoyed listening to his daughters.

"What do you think, Robert? Should women have a right to vote?" It is Matthew who asked the question, he wouldn't have dared to ask something like that.

"A few years ago I'd have said 'no', but I think I've changed my mind. Why shouldn't women be allowed to vote? I used to think that one vote per family was enough, but there are families in which opinions differ greatly. So yes, I think that every adult, regardless of gender, should have the right to vote. Although I am afraid that Cora won't get it, she is still an American."

"Our Papa, an advocate for women's rights. Who would have thought?"

"Thank you Edith, for your high opinion of me." He wonders for a moment if Edith is in trouble but then he sees both Edith and her father laugh and he wonders what the family dynamics are really like, what 'the Crawleys' are like when they are just amongst themselves.

"On that note, my dear girls, I'll go to bed. Make fun of me all you like as longs as I don't have to hear it." Robert and all the girls then get up and he gives each one of them a kiss on the cheek in turn. He would have never thought the mighty Earl of Grantham to do something like that, but it seems to be regular occurrence as neither of the girls seems to be surprised.

"Goodnight Tom. Matthew, if you want to sleep here, your room is ready. Just let someone know, they'll tell your mother if you want to let her know. Although she will probably know where you are."

"Thank you, I'll stay. I have a meeting with Jarvis at eight tomorrow morning and I've already told Mother that I might not come back tonight."

"Alright, I'll see you at breakfast then." The Earl, Robert, leaves and they are left to their own devices. Robert didn't say a word about chaperoning or behaving well and he wonders if he just forgot or if he trusts all of his daughters and Matthew and him so implicitly that he didn't think that warnings were necessary.

"Are you really allowed to make fun of your father?" He can't believe that the might Earl would sanction that.

"As long as no one besides us and Mama hear it, yes. Why should he not allow it? He makes fun of other people as well and I think it is for the best that no one knows what he and Mama talk about in their bedroom." It is Edith who answered and he is slightly surprised by that, almost as surprised as he is by the term 'their bedroom'.

"So, how was dinner with Tom?"

"I thought you would be asleep." He is either teasing her or stalling and she dearly hopes that it is teasing. If he stalled, it would mean that dinner did not go that well and she wants Tom to be part of the family and if he is teasing her it means that it did go well and that he isn't as careful with her any more, which she would appreciate very much. She might be sick physically but she certainly should be allowed some fun.

"Robert."

"What?" He has now sat down on his side of the bed and looks at her as if he had no idea what she wanted to know and she thinks there is a twinkle in his eye.

"You know."

"I don't." He is certainly teasing her.

"Tell me."

"Tell you what?" He can look so innocent when he wants to. She moves a little closer to him and begins to tickle his side.

"Stop it."

"Not until you tell me."

"Cora, I am warning you."

"About what?"

"If you don't stop"  
"If I don't stop?"

"Then I'll do this." He grabs her, pushes her on her back and hovers over her. She knows that he did it without thinking, that he momentarily forgot how sick she is, but it makes her very happy nonetheless. She hopes that he will kiss her but he doesn't and moves away from her instead. It probably is for the better, she doesn't want him to get sick too but she is still disappointed, if only for second.

"I am sorry darling, I shouldn't have done that. I forgot that you are still sick."

"Don't worry. So will you tell me now? About dinner with Tom?"

"There is nothing much to tell. It went rather well. Sybil was of course over the moon and so was Matthew. I think Matthew needs a friend, a man his own age. Edith was surprisingly friendly to him but I am not complaining about that. And Tom didn't seem to feel too out of place, which is a good sign. He wore the dinner jacket I asked him to wear, so maybe he has accepted that he sometimes has to play by our rules if he wants to marry into this family."

"I doubt that Tom wants to do that, Robert. He loves Sybil, but he doesn't love us."

"No. But Matthew wasn't too keen on us at first either and he came around too." She has to laugh about that. Calling Matthew 'not too keen' on them is quite an understatement, Matthew was prepared to dislike them all, except for Mary perhaps. Matthew didn't believe in class divides, he still doesn't, not really, which is probably why he is excited about Tom joining the family. But Robert is right, in many aspects Matthew has come around. He cares about the estate and its legacy and he has accepted his role as the next Earl of Grantham even if he will probably be far more liberal than Robert is, although Robert actually is quite liberal himself. He may not always seem like it, in fact she thinks that Robert can sometimes appear to be rather stuck-up, but he isn't, he has never been stuck-up, he was just raised in a conservative world. But if he was as much of a traditionalist as some people belief him to be, he wouldn't live the life he lives. He wouldn't spend every night beside his wife, he wouldn't have allowed her, in fact helped her, to raise their daughters to be independent and outspoken, he wouldn't have accepted Matthew so openly and he certainly wouldn't view her as an equal to him.

"Yes, he did. I am glad he did. It means quite a lot to you, doesn't it?"

"Yes. I love him like a son." She squeezes his hand when he says that. She has known this for years of course, but he has never said it to her, not so plainly. His worries about Matthew when he was in the trenches, when he was missing and later injured spoke for themselves and she felt rather sorry for him. She can't feel exactly the same about Matthew because she is not like a mother to the boy with him actually living with his mother but she loves Matthew regardless of that. He has done quite a lot for the family and is doing more every day, after all he even gave up being a lawyer to help Robert and thereby her, even if it is only a temporary arrangement.

"I know you do and I am glad about it."

"You don't think it is wrong?"

"No. It doesn't make you love our girls any less, so there is nothing wrong about it. And I know that you have always wanted a son."

"I am sorry."

"Don't be, there is nothing wrong with wanting to have a son, I wanted one too, you know that. I love our girls very much but I also wanted a son, just as much as you did."

"You know that I don't blame you, don't you?" She isn't really sure what he means, whether he means that she is not to blame for them having only girls or whether he means that he doesn't blame her for the death of the one son they could have had. But she knows that he doesn't blame her for either one of those things, so she just says "I know Robert. And I love you for it." He kisses her hand now and looks at her and she can see that there are tears in his eyes.

"I wish he had lived." He has never talked about their son, not since the day after the miscarriage. She never asked him to talk about it although she would have liked to have talked to him about it but she also knows that it wouldn't have done Robert or her or their relationship any good if she had forced him to talk about their dead baby boy.

"So do I."

"He would have turned six this year."

"Yes. And he'd be driving us mad and we'd love him for it." Robert laughs at that but it is a sad laugh, one that makes her want to hug him, makes her want to kiss him and take his troubles away. But she can't. She will never be able to take this burden of him, a part of him will always mourn the loss of his son and she can't take his troubles away for a short while because she is too weak to even get up, let alone do anything else.

"He'd probably be like boy version of you."

"There would be an American Earl then, sometime in the future."

"My mother would try to turn him into a proper English man but she wouldn't be successful."

"No, she wouldn't. But she'd love him all the same. Just as we would."

"Yes. Cora, I am so sorry for leaving you alone with it. I am sorry for never mentioning him, but I just couldn't. It hurts too much, it still does." He looks so defeated now and she has to make him feel better, so she leans forward, disregarding the pain that it puts her in, takes his face between her hands and kisses him on the lips. It isn't more than a swift kiss, they shouldn't and she couldn't do anything else but she pours all the love she feels for him into that one kiss.

"Robert, it will always hurt a little, but there is nothing we can do about it, is there? When can talk about him from time to time, but that is all we have of that little boy. But let's not start to wallow in self-pity now."

"I won't wallow in self-pity. I am too happy for that. I know this sounds contradictory and maybe it is, but that is how I feel. Besides wishing that our boy had lived, my life is quite perfect the way it is. You will get well again and two of our three daughters are about to be very happy and I am sure that Edith will be happy eventually as well."

"We should help her with that, although I don't really know how to do that." She really doesn't know how to accomplish that, although she dearly wishes she could. The fact that she spends all of her time in bed and can't even read has made her think about many things and Edith is someone she has thought about rather a lot. Mary and Sybil are about to marry the men they want to marry and while Cora doesn't believe that a woman's happiness necessarily depends on a man, she knows that Edith longs for love.

"We'll think of something."

"Yes."

"My mother has asked to see you. I told her I didn't know whether you were well enough for it, but I think you shouldn't deny her a visit for too long because she is very worried about you. She won't believe either me or Sybil that you are getting better every day, she wants to see it for herself." This rather touches her. She has long since stopped to believe that her mother-in-law hated her, she doesn't even think that she dislikes her, but wanting to check on her to make sure that she is alright is touching regardless of that.

"Send her here tomorrow, I'd like to see her and I am sure she will want to talk about Mary sacking Carlilse which will happen tomorrow as well."

"Well, you'll have something to talk about then."

"Yes. Carlisle, Mary, Matthew, Sybil and Tom. It is quite a lot, so I should probably go to sleep now lest I fall asleep tomorrow while your mother talks to me."

"She would never forgive you for that." She knows Robert isn't serious but she wants to go to sleep all the same. So she lies down, takes his hand and closes her eyes. She feels Robert placing a soft kiss on her forehead and then she falls asleep.

* * *

AN: Thank you so much for the many reviews, they are really encouraging (I am bordering on frustration at the moment, so some people telling me that they like what I write is a huge help).

I have an insane amount of work to do over the next two and a half weeks and will probably not be able to update regularly, maybe even not at all (although I hope it won't come to that). I hope you won't forget about me :)

Kat


	8. Chapter 8

"Sir Richard Carlisle." Her heart begins to race, she has been afraid of this moment more than anything and while she certainly doesn't want to drag her family into the mud with her, something she is about to do right now, her fear of facing Richard has been the main reason why she hasn't talked to him so far.

"Hello Richard."

"Mary, I am glad you allowed me back here. How is your mother?"

"Getting better. Thank you. Although it will be months before she is really well again."

"We can wait with the wedding until then, if you want to. Although I'd prefer it if we didn't." She would prefer that too but not in the way that Richard expects. She had hoped that he had already had a suspicion as to why she suddenly asked him to come, but apparently he doesn't have one, he thinks that wedding is still on, and who can blame him for it. Although she has been pushing the wedding back for almost two years now. She is afraid that he really loves her, that that is the reason why he hasn't given up on her yet, that she will actually break his heart. She has never been sure if he really has one, but then people say that she doesn't haven't heart and that is certainly not true, it has hurt far more often and painfully than she would have wished for and it will only stop if she gets this over with, if she sends Carlisle away in favor of Matthew, in favor of the love of her life.

"Richard, I am sorry, but I don't think I can marry you."

"You have to marry me, Mary. We've made an announcement and I have an ironclad grip on you."

"Announcements aren't as important anymore as they used to be. And your grip on me isn't ironclad."

"I will ruin you if you don't marry me. No one will ever want to marry you then. Especially not Matthew, he is too high and mighty to marry a fallen woman. He will sever ties with you." It is hard for her not to defend Matthew right now, but it would not be helpful, not right now. Of course Richard will find out that she will marry Matthew, she should probably tell Richard herself, but she needs to get this over with first.

"Richard, this isn't about Matthew. I just wouldn't be happy with you, we wouldn't be happy." It is true, she could never be happy with Richard. Had she never met Matthew, maybe she could have been content with Richard, but Matthew changed her. He made her softer, he made her look at different things, he made her long for different things and she longs for love, something Richard will not be able to give her because she doesn't love him.

"I love you Mary, you know that."

"No, I don't. You have never said it before."

"Well you know now then."

"Richard, it is a strange kind of love if you tell the woman you profess to love that she has to marry you because you have the means to ruin her."

"I will make you love me. Mary, as long as you don't double cross me, I will be good to you, I am able to give you anything you want."

"Except for one thing Richard. A marriage based on mutual love without any threats." She almost cries when she says this because she realizes that if it hadn't been for her mother's illness and Lavinia's death she would have gone through with it, she would have entered that marriage, she would have condemned herself to a life of unhappiness. She'd have been dreaming of Matthew, she'd have been pining for him for the rest of her life and that thought almost breaks her heart.

"No one will want to marry you. Your father will not let you live here anymore. You'll be an old maid. Well not really a maid."

"That was below the belt Richard."

"I don't care." No he doesn't care, he never cares about the feelings of others and that is why she can't love him. Because Matthew does care, he has always cared. When she went to Crawley house to welcome him and his mother and she overheard him saying that her parents were going to push her or her sisters on him and he realized that she had heard it, he had not only been embarrassed but also concerned and she now knows that that was the moment she began to fall in love with him.

"If you really loved me, you wouldn't say that."

"Oh yes Mary, I would. I am terribly disappointed in you, I thought you had more common sense. AND I WILL RUIN YOU AND TAKE YOUR BLOODY FAMILY DOWN WITH YOU. INCLUDING YOUR PRECIOUS MATTHEW." She is sure that everyone in the house heard that last sentence and she wants to yell back at him but the door opens and both Matthew and Tom enter the library.

"Can we help?" they ask in unison.

"OH, IT IS PRETTY BOY AND THE CHAUFFEUR! STRIKING UP A FRIENDSHIP? WELL, I CAN MAKE SOMETHING OUT OF THAT. FUTURE EARL OF GRANTHAM ACCEPTS SERVANT AS FAMILIY MEMBER, HIM AND IMPURE LADY MARY CAUSE FAMILY TO BE LAUGHING STOCK OF SOCIETY. LADY GRANTHAM ALMOST DIES OF SHAME."

There is a noise of a fist hitting a face and Richard stumbles backwards and when she looks in the direction the punch came from she sees that Matthew and Tom are restraining her father who must have entered the room while Richard was still yelling.

"So I have found your pressure point Lord Grantham." She is afraid that her father is going to explode and she can see that Matthew and Tom are having trouble restraining him.

"Papa, what is going on?" Edith and Sybil have now entered the library as well. Edith takes one look at the scene in front of her and then says "Sir Richard, I think you better leave. I'll ring for a car," and then she ushers Carlisle out of the room. For the first time in a very long time Mary wants to hug Edith.

"Papa, let me look at your hand"

"Sybil it is alright."

"You are in pain, I can see that. Tom let go of him, I have to look at his hand." Sybil takes their father's hand and when she tries to move his fingers he cries out in pain.

"It is broken, quite possibly in several places. You have to see Dr. Clarkson."

"And what will he say when I tell him how it happened?"  
"He will probably congratulate you on having punched Carlisle in the face. He has met him, don't forget that."

"Will he put my hand in a cast?" Her father now has the expression of worried little boy on his face and she has to try very hard to not laugh about that.

"Yes."

"If I've got a cast, your mother and grandmother will want to know what happened. I'll be in trouble then." Now she has to laugh so does Sybil.

"I am rather sure that Mama won't put you in the doghouse. I'll tell her you defended her very gallantly."

"Thank you for that Mary." She isn't sure whether her father is serious but she will tell her mother exactly why her father punched Richard and she hopes that the reason will appease her mother because her father does not deserve to be banished from her mother's room for what he has done.

"Robert, come on, I'll take you to the hospital."

It is Tom who has spoken to him now and he knows he has to go. He supposes he'd rather be taken to the hospital by Tom who knows what happened and heard what Carlisle said, then by an unsuspecting chauffeur who would probably tell untrue stories about why his employer came back from the hospital with his hand in a cast.

"Thank you." The pain is almost unbearable now and he wants to see the Doctor because he needs a painkiller most of all.

"Tom, I am sorry you had to see that," he says when they are in the car. He is sitting in the front next to Tom, he thought that sitting in the backseat would now have been rather inappropriate, would have placed Tom in the position of a servant again and he doesn't want that to happen. It is important to him that Tom knows that he isn't a servant anymore.

"Actually, I am rather impressed by what you have done."

"Let's hope that my wife will be impressed too." He really isn't too sure that Cora will be impressed, he rather doubts it. Her brother gets into fights from time to time and she always says how stupid that is of him and how a grown man should know better. He hopes that she won't banish him from their room because he hates sleeping in his dressing room. He has hated it for 29 years, but after kissing Jane in there, after almost taking Jane to bed in there, he hates the room even more. Cora has forgiven him but he hasn't quite forgiven himself for it. Moreover, he just doesn't want to spend the night away from Cora.

"Your daughters were rather impressed too, they'll cushion the blow." He hopes that Tom is right. He doesn't want to fight with Cora, he hates fighting with her.

"Let's hope you are right."

When Dr. Clarkson tries to move his hand the way Sybil did he has to bite his tongue to not cry out in pain.

"Lord Grantham, Lady Sybil's estimation was correct. You have broken your hand, in several places actually. I have to set the bones before I put your hand in a cast."

"I suppose that will hurt." He once broke his leg when he was ten. He raced Rosamund on horseback and she took a jump and he thought that he could do it too and so he urged his horse on but he was far too inexperienced and the horse threw him and he fell on his leg. The leg had to be set too and he still remembers how much that hurt forty years later.

"I am afraid it will."

Once his hand is in the cast and he has been given a painkiller Tom takes him home again.

"Thank you Tom, for taking me to the hospital and for not laughing about me."

"You are welcome. What are we going to tell you mother?"

"The truth, I suppose. Maybe Matthew and you could add how gallant you thought my defense of the family was."

"We'll do that. I'll tell Matthew."

"I hope you don't think that I punch people often." He really doesn't want Tom to think him a violent a man. He thinks that eventually he will come to like Tom and it would make matters much more difficult if Tom didn't think well of him.

"I don't think that you punch people very often"

"Good."

"Because you hit like a girl. But I won't tell anyone about that." He gets angry, very angry and wants to yell at Tom, because how can that chauffeur be so brazen and say that he punches like a girl. But then he realizes that the chauffeur isn't the chauffeur anymore and that the only reason that Tom is driving him now is that Tom offered to do so, so that not too many of the staff know what happened. They will find out eventually, but for now Tom has kept the gossip among the staff at bay and he should be happy about that and not be indignant by Tom offending him on such a way. Still, he needs to defend himself.

"Carlisle staggered backwards, it can't have been that bad."

"Don't get me wrong, you are rather strong, the impact was strong but you just held your fist the wrong way. You wouldn't have broken your hand had you done that differently."

"And how do you know about that?"

"Growing up with a brother 10 years older than me has taught me a thing or two." He is glad that Tom didn't say 'growing up on the streets of Dublin' but then he thinks that Tom's family can't have been that poor, considering how well educated and how well-read the boy is.

"How did you grow up, Tom?"

"With my mother and brother in Dublin and my grandfather in Cork. My father left when I was three, I don't remember him and because my mother didn't want me to grow up as a fatherless city boy, she made me spent half my time on my grandfather's farm near Cork. It wasn't a small farm. Of course he did most of the work himself and I always had to help, but I enjoyed that very much. It was outside, the air was good, the people were nice. That was all I ever wanted. I went to school there too, both there and in Dublin, depending on where I was. My grandfather paid for my education it was sort of my payment for helping him out and I still think that it was a very good deal. I also learned to drive on my grandfather's farm. Started out with tractors of course and then moved on to cars."  
"Your grandfather had a tractor?"

"Yes. He did some of the farming himself, but he wasn't poor. He could afford to modernize the farm very early on and it was a good thing he did. When he died, my mother inherited it all. She sold the farm and lives quite comfortably now. She owns a house in a Dublin suburb now. It is a small house, but it is hers."

"That is nice." He doesn't know what else to say but he is somehow glad that Tom seems to have had a happy childhood. He doesn't have to say anything else though, because they have reached the Abbey and he can get out of the car. Before they go inside he looks at Tom and says "Thank you again, Tom," at which point Carson who welcomed them or rather him home does a double take and looks at him disapprovingly. He wonders if he should talk to the staff but then decides to give it some time.

Her daughters have told her what her husband has done and she is rather proud of him for defending his family, even if he broke his hand in the process. It must have been very gallant and she wishes she had seen it. She is sick and tired of being sick and weak but there is nothing she can do. Dr. Clarkson said that it was almost a miracle that she was able to sit up by herself and eat without help but it isn't enough for her. Summer is just around the corner and she hates being cooped up in her room and even more than that she hates that she is never in the middle of something. Her daughters and Robert always tell her what happened but she is never there when something is happening.

When he enters her room he looks at her rather sheepishly and she wonders if she should make fun of him and pretend to be angry. But he probably is in rather a lot of pain, so she decides to be sympathetic and full of admiration for him, which she really is.

"There is my knight in shining armor."

"So the girls have told you what happened?"

"Yes. All three of them. It was rather like a theater play in which all the actors talk at the same time. They were rather excited and impressed."

"Are you excited and impressed?" He looks hopeful and she realizes that the expression on his face it the same expression he wore when he proposed to her. It had been anything but romantic, he had just told her what he could offer and that he thought that they got along quite well and she is sure that that had been what he thought at the time, but the look on his face had told her something else. The look on his face had told her that he didn't only want to marry her to save the estate; he wanted to marry her because he saw more in her than just means to an end, that was why he had hoped that he had impressed her, the she would be excited about getting married to him. Her suspicion had been confirmed on their wedding day. When her father walked her down the aisle, Robert turned around and the look on his face when he saw her had been full of love and admiration, even if Robert had had no idea what he was feeling at that time. When the photographer showed them the picture of them smiling at each other after they had returned from the wedding journey, she had known that Robert would fall in love with her, she had almost been sure that he had actually fallen in love with her before the wedding and that he was just too stubborn and to focused on saving the estate to notice it. She had kept the picture and following Robert's request had hidden it, but she also bought a beautiful frame for it. When Robert had finally told her that he loved her she had decided to give the picture to him and placed it on his desk with a note telling him that she loved him too next to it. The picture has been on his desk for almost three decades now and it makes her smile every time she looks at it.

"Cora? Are you alright?"

"Yes. I was just thinking that you now look exactly as you did when you proposed to me."

"I hoped that you were excited and impressed then as well."

"I was then and I am now. Thank you for your gallant defense of me."

"It is what you deserve. What he said"

"I know what he said. The girls told me."

"I could have hit him harder than I did without actually breaking my hand if hadn't hit him like a girl."

"What?"

"Tom says I hit like a girl. He says I am strong but that I have no idea how to place a punch."

She has to laugh about that. Robert says it as if he was really concerned about hitting like a girl but not concerned about Tom saying something like that all. She marvels at how easily it has suddenly been for Robert to accept Tom into their family and it makes her very happy. She likes Tom, how could she not like the man that makes Sybil happy and he really seems to be willing to adapt at least a little.

"You must like Tom quite a lot if you let him say that without punching him too."

"I think do like him or at least I am sure that I eventually will like him, I don't know why, probably because he makes Sybil happy and because he is honest to me. He doesn't try to impress me and I like that. Did you know that he spent part of his childhood and youth on a farm near Cork?"

"No."

"He did. He told me when we came back from the hospital. I think he actually is more of a country boy than a city boy."

"Which suits you rather well, since you are a country boy too."

"Yes."

"And a knight who defends his wife and family."

"I will always defend you."

"If I could, I'd kiss you senseless right now." She wants to so much, she misses being with him so much it almost hurts, although she knows that for a long time yet theywon't be able to do more than talk and she knows that it will be hard on both of them. While she thinks that the basis of their happy marriage is their ability to talk to one another, this ability is based on mutual trust and they found that in their physical relationship first. They got that part right from the start, even during their wedding night. Robert had come to her room at Grantham House and in a move she had thought quite uncharacteristic ofhim then, his first action had been to kiss her and then he had said 'I am glad I married you. This has been happy day'. She had made a decision then. She could either have been the shameful bride who lay back and thought of England or she could be a wife who relished her physical relationship with her husband. Her brother had told her that while women were always taught that they should just wait for their husbands to 'do their job', that was not what most men wanted. According to her brother most men wanted a wife who enjoyed being with them, that a husband would be much happier and more inclined to like or even love his wife if that wife did not lay motionless on the bed. Because she wanted to be a good wife and have a happy marriage, because she wanted Robert to be happy and to love her, she had decided that she would not lie back and think of England and so she had put her hands into Robert's hair and kissed him back. He had pulled her close then and she had started to divest him of his clothes. He had seemed surprised but pleasantly so and she had been as active as him and after they were done he had lain down next to her, taken her hand and said 'That was not how I had imagined it to be. It was much better.' He then put a blanket over them and an arm around her and they had laughed themselves silly. When she told him what her brother had said he answered that he would buy her brother the most expensive cigars he could find. She still wonders if their marriage would be as easy going and loving as it has been most part if she had made a different decision that night.

"I'll take a rain check," Robert says and shakes her out of her reverie that way.

They both laugh now too and he sits down next to her and pulls her close to him.

"I love you," he murmurs into her hair and she says "I love you too."

He is rather nervous although he thinks that he shouldn't be because this is the third time that he is going to propose marriage, but admittedly the first two proposal were rather disastrous. When he proposed to Mary she asked for time to think about it and then said nothing for months, only for him to break the whole thing off, and while Lavinia said a tearful yes right away, he shouldn't have proposed to her in the first place.

It is now Mary again whom he will ask, but he is almost sure that this time will be different. He will ask the woman he loves and he knows that she loves him too. So when he asks her to join him on a walk and she smiles at him his nerves calm down a little.

He takes her to the place where he left her during the garden party in 1914, where he broke it off with her because he thought she didn't love him. This is where they fell apart and he wants this to be where they mend their broken relationship, hearts and lives. He is almost sure that she knows what is on his mind because she looks rather pensive as if she was remembering that fateful day too.

"Mary, I once asked you right here whether you loved me enough to marry me and then I ran away stupidly without realizing that there was something weighing you down, that there was something stopping you, an obstacle that I could have removed. And I should have realized that, I should have realized that you were not yourself, that you hadn't been yourself for quite some time and that it would have been my duty to make it better." There are tears running down Mary's face now and he wonders if this was really the right start or the right place, if he shouldn't just have taken her to the rose garden and declared his love for her. But that would not have been them. They carry more luggage than the porters at King's Cross and they need to get rid of it.

"We've both done some stupid things, but they are in the past and we should just forget about them. Let's think only of the past as its remembrance gives us pleasure. And I think there are thinks in our past that give us pleasure, but in that past you've lived your life and I've lived mine and I think it's time we lived them together." Mary now nods and smiles at him although there are still tears running down her face. "So," he says, gets down on one knee and takes her hand. "Mary, I love you, I love you more than I ever thought it would be possible to love someone. And I hope, I think I know, that you love me too. You would make me the happiest man on earth if you said yes to what I am going to ask you now. Mary, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?"

Mary is sobbing too hard to say anything but she nods and he asks "yes?" and she nods again, so he gets up and swings her around and she holds on to him. Once he has put her down she looks at him and chokes out "I love you." He says "I love you too" and kisses her.

He has no idea how long they stay in the garden, how long they hold on to each other but eventually it begins to rain and without saying a word they both turn towards the house and walk inside, hand in hand.

"Matthew?" she asks when they are inside.

"Yes?"

"Why didn't you have a ring?" He laughs at the question, he had thought she would ask it much sooner.

"Because I want you to pick one yourself. We can have a look at the family heirlooms if you want to, both mine and yours, although I suppose that your selection is much larger than what we have at our house, or I'll buy one for you. Whatever you prefer."  
"Matthew, go visit Granny tomorrow and tell her that you need a ring for me. She'll be able to help you."

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AN: A little later than usual, but I made it. I can't promise you an update tomorrow, but I'll try my best to post the next chapter during the weekend.

There are of course two quotes in Matthew's proposal, one is from the 2011 CS and the sentence right before it is an almost direct quote from Pride and Prejudice.

As always, thank you so much for all your reviews!

Kat


	9. Chapter 9

AN: So I really did manage to update at the weekend, even if it is 10:40 pm here.

There definitely won't be an update tomorrow and I can't promise one for Tuesday either, but again, I'll do my best.

As always, thank you all for your support, I wouldn't be able to write as much without you guys!

Kat

P.S: Tina: Because you are a guest, I can't reply to your reviews, but thank your for them!

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She is pleasantly surprised when her butler announces 'Mr. Crawley'. She likes Matthew very much and she always enjoys his visits, although they are far and few between. She has always wanted a grandson and she has come to think of Matthew as her grandson. She didn't like him very much when she first met him, but that had had little to do with him and quite a lot to do with Mary and Cora. She felt that Matthew was taking what should have been Mary's and what used to be Cora's. The 'absurd act of legal theft' as Cora called the prenuptial Robert's father had drawn up was one of the very few things that Patrick did that she could not agree with. She had told him so, had told him that no matter how little she liked Cora and no matter how much they needed the money, they should not tie all of it up in the estate, in case Robert and Cora wouldn't have a son. Patrick had listened to her, he always listened to her, but she had not been able to change his mind. Robert and Cora did not have a son and Robert's cousin became the heir and Mary was supposed to marry the heir's son, who fittingly had been called Patrick as well. Violet had not been thrilled by the idea, she had hoped that Mary would be able to marry for love, but then one never knew what would happen, Robert and Cora had fallen for each other and why should that not have happened to Patrick and Mary as well? All of that of course came to nothing when the unsinkable ship sank on its maiden voyage and both Patrick and James sank with it. She had formed an alliance with Cora then to break the entail but it hadn't worked and once Cora had given up, Violet had known that it just wasn't possible to secure the estate and the money for Mary. Matthew had already been in their lives by then, an arrogant middle-class lawyer with an overbearing mother and she had hated both of them. Her hatred for Matthew evaporated when she found out that he had proposed to Mary and that it had been done out of love and she wanted to slap her granddaughter across the face for not accepting Matthew right away because Matthew was not only the heir but obviously a very good man, a man who would marry her for love. She had words with her daughter Rosamund after her daughter had told Mary to wait until she knew whether her mother's baby was a boy or a girl and when Cora lost the boy it had already been too late for Mary.  
Matthew had fought bravely during the war and even if she personally didn't like Lavinia too much, the girl was too gentle, couldn't take a joke and would not have made a very good Countess, she had still been relieved when Matthew came back from the war, had felt exceedingly sorry for his injury and had been happy for him when he became well again against all odds. He is now running the estate because of Cora's illness and because he wants to relieve Robert of his duties and she thinks that this is an act of kindness that Robert should be very thankful for, in fact she is sure that Robert is very thankful for it.  
"Matthew, what brings you here?" she asks the boy and he smiles at her.  
"I proposed to Mary yesterday, but I did so without a ring. I wanted her to choose it herself, because it is always hard to estimate what she would like. She told me that I should ask you to help me." She has to laugh about this. Matthew has gotten the measure of Mary quite right.  
"Matthew, you were certainly right in not getting a ring yourself. Since you are here, I suppose that she said yes."  
"She did." She wants to hug the boy, not just because it means that the estate will stay in the family, but because he has probably made Mary very happy and because she is very happy for him. But hugging Matthew would be entirely inappropriate and she says "Congratulations my dear boy," instead.  
"Thank you."  
"What did your mother say?"  
"She doesn't know yet."  
"You are telling me before you've told her? I am much honored."  
"Well, how could I have asked you about the ring without telling you who it was for?"  
"True. About that ring. Come with me." She takes him to her dressing room, she doesn't mind whether this is inappropriate, she has actually seen him in his bed and her bed is not in this room and she rummages among her jewelry box until she finds what she is looking for.  
"This is the ring that Mary was referring to. She has always liked it, she used to beg me to let her wear it when she was a young girl and played dress up. I hardly ever allowed it because it is rather valuable. It belonged to my favorite aunt, who gave it to me as a Christmas present when I was sixteen."  
"That's a nice story."  
"Yes, it is," she says and looks at the ring. It is the ring that Mary wants, but something doesn't feel right about it, it isn't an engagement ring, an engagement ring should a symbol of love. While she plays with the ring, she looks at the rings that she is wearing and she knows that there is a ring that Mary likes even more than the one she was referring to, but it is a ring that Mary would never ask for, wouldn't even dream of asking for. And she wonders if Mary doesn't deserve the ring. The poor girl has been through so much pain and heartache but held her head high and she is her granddaughter and she is getting married to the love her life.  
Violet closes her eyes for a second, takes a deep breath and then takes off her own engagement ring, takes Matthew's hand and places the ring in it. "She'll love it," she says and then she has to turn away.  
"No, I can't take it. That is not what Mary meant, I am sure of it." Matthew's voice is full of honesty and he is right, but she knows that it will make her granddaughter very happy and Mary deserves to be happy and the girl deserves a ring that is a symbol of love. It certainly is that, Patrick bought that ring in 1861 before proposing to her, he had to buy it because his mother refused to give him a family heirloom. Patrick's mother thought that Violet wasn't good enough for her son, but Patrick didn't care and so he bought her a beautiful ring and proposed to her nonetheless. But that was almost sixty years ago and Patrick has been dead for twenty-five years now and giving the ring to a granddaughter he loved would make him very happy. So she turns back to Matthew and says  
"Yes, Matthew, take it. Patrick loved Mary very much and he would have loved you too."  
Matthew looks as if he was about to protest but then only nods and says "Thank you."  
When they walk back to the sitting room in silence, Matthew keeps a distance between them and she knows that he does so to let her catch herself.  
"I heard Robert got into a fight." Matthew laughs at this and she thinks that he is relieved about the change of topic.  
"Not a fight. He only threw one punch."  
"And it broke his hand."  
"Well, he punches like a girl." She has to laugh about this because she thinks that it is probably true. Even as a child Robert wasn't a fighter, she can't remember ever getting a letter from his school about him hitting another boy. She did get letters about him stealing biscuits from the kitchen and being cheeky to his teachers and although she would never admit to it, she but especially Patrick had been rather proud of their son when they received a letter that included a detailed account of what exactly Robert had said to an old philosophy teacher, a teacher that had already taught Patrick and that Patrick had hated with all his guts but Patrick had never been courageous enough to speak up to that teacher. Robert had had that courage and she knows he got it from her.  
"But I suppose Sir Richard was shocked nonetheless."  
"Yes. He staggered backwards. It was rather entertaining to watch; or rather it would have been had Carlisle not offended half the family and had it not been so hard for Tom and me to restrain Robert from beating Carlisle into a pulp."  
"I thought Robert punched like a girl."  
"Yes, but he is still stronger than Carlisle."  
"I suppose I should be proud of that."  
"He is afraid of your reaction. When Sybil told him that his hand was broken he said that he would be in trouble with both Cora and you."  
"He was far more afraid of being in trouble with Cora than with me. He tends to brush me off when we disagree and then just ignores me until I go home, but Cora is an entirely different matter. Although I am sure that she thought his action quite heroic and looked at him all gooey eyed when he told her about it. That is at least how she looked, well not at me, rather into the distance, when she told me about it. Sometimes that woman is like a teenage girl in love for the first time, not like a woman who has been a countess for 25 years."  
"But that is something to be happy about, isn't it?"  
Of course it is, but she would never admit to it. Had she known what would become of Robert and Cora, she wouldn't have tried to fight the engagement, she would have welcomed that American with open arms and she sometimes regrets that she was so cold to her, because it means that they still have a slightly strained relationship.  
"Maybe. As long as I don't have to see it."  
"Will you come for dinner? Robert said you'd be welcome."  
"Won't the chauffeur be there?"  
"You mean Tom? Yes, he will be there."  
"Dining with a servant then."  
"Dining with your son, your granddaughters, your future grandsons-in-law and your best friend."  
"You could sell melted ice cream as a delicacy."  
"Thank you very much. So, will you come?"  
"Yes. Tell your mother to be ready on time so that the driver will only have to get out once. Tell her to be ready early, I want to see Cora first."

Isobel followed her upstairs but left Cora's room after ten minutes and now she is alone with her daughter-in-law who looks better than she did yesterday. She hadn't seen Cora for quite a while and although Robert kept telling her that Cora was getting better and she believed him, she had been shocked when she saw her yesterday. Cora, who has always been thin, must have lost at least one stone due to her illness and she looks as if a breeze could break her. Robert had said that the color had returned to Cora's face and she really was distinguishable from the white sheet on her bed, but that had been it. But Violet thinks that Cora looks a little better today than she did yesterday and maybe it is the daily progress that made Robert tell her that Cora looked 'better'.  
"Mary told me about the ring."  
"I hope it made her happy."  
"You are in for a hug, I think. I told her not to be too emotional. But thank you, you have made her very happy. I think she feels quite honored and with that impeding scandal"  
"She deserves it. The girl has suffered enough. I am glad that Matthew is able to look past the Pamuk incident."  
"He loves her."  
"Good."  
"Are you sure that you won't regret it?"  
"Yes, I am sure. I didn't give the ring to just anyone, I gave it to Matthew so that he could give to Mary. I am sure that she will let me look at it from time to time."  
"You still miss him." It is not a question, it is a statement and it is true.  
"Yes." She can't say more than that or she is going to cry and she can't cry in front of anyone but especially not in front of her daughter-in-law, a woman she always accuses of being too emotional. So she hides her emotions even more than usual whenever Cora is around.  
One of the two reasons she didn't want Cora to die was that she didn't want Robert to suffer as much as she did and sometimes still does. Her son had looked so haggard and defeated during the weeks they didn't know what would happen to Cora and she saw herself in him. Patrick had been sick only for a little while but she had known that it would be fatal and she remembers the heartache and the suffering as if it had happened yesterday. And seeing her dear boy suffer like that had brought every single raw emotion of her husband's death back to her and no mother could ever wish for her child to feel that way, especially not a mother who loves her children and she certainly does that. She has never told them that but she loves Robert and Rosamund and Cora as well with all her heart and losing one of her children would have ripped her apart and that was the second reason why she didn't want Cora to die. She knows she wouldn't just have lost one of her daughters but her son as well, because Robert would have fallen into a deep hole he would have never been able to leave. Robert is more emotional than her, he got that from his father and that coupled with a wife who is very open with her own emotions, who taught him to really feel his emotions would have meant the end of the world for Robert if Cora had died.  
"I would have talked to him."  
"What?" She has no idea what her daughter-in-law is referring to now.  
"Had it become apparent that there was no chance for my survival, I would have talked to Robert about his life after my death. I know he thought that my death would mean the end of his life, but I would have told him that was not I wanted for him. I did tell him in fact, but only very briefly. But had I not recovered, we would have had a long conversation about it before I had died. I would have told him that he had quite a lot to live for and that our girls needed him, even if all of them were grown-up. I would have given him my permission to be happy without me." This touches her very deeply and she wishes she was able to express it but she can't. Although she hopes that Cora knows her well enough to know that she isn't made of stone.

She looks at her mother-in-law and knows that what she has just said has touched the older woman, so she smiles at her and then takes a deep breath to signal the end of that particular part of the conversation. Robert's mother has never learned to show or to talk about her feelings and that is just the way it is, but the woman isn't made out of stone, she loves her family very much and even twenty-five years after his death she still sometimes mourns her husband. Cora supposes that she would never really get over Robert dying either, she is too dependent on him. But she doesn't want to think about it.  
"So, I will have to have dinner with the chauffeur."  
"Tom. Yes. He lives here now, you know that."  
"Robert has turned socialist then."  
"No. He is still a royalist."  
"Why the chauffeur then?" She has to get her mother-in-law to stop referring to Tom as 'the chauffeur', preferably before dinner.  
"Because Sybil loves him and he isn't a chauffeur anymore. He is a journalist now. And does it really matter?"  
"It may not matter to you. Those things do not seem to be important in America." She is about to go crazy. After over thirty years of knowing her, her mother-in-law still makes those stupid jokes about America.  
"Maybe not. We don't measure the worth of a man based on who his ancestors were. We only do that with purebred dogs." Violet looks a little shocked and her insides are dancing because of it. It is so hard to set Robert's mother off balance and Violet does it to her all the time.  
"Speaking of which, when is your mother coming over?" She knows that Violet means this as a low blow but to her it isn't because she doesn't get along with her mother any better than Violet does.  
"I have no idea. She will certainly be here for Mary's wedding, I suppose she will want to come to Sybil's too and I am afraid she won't want to go home between the weddings. Robert promised Sybil to have the wedding as soon as I was well enough to attend it, which isn't a problem because it will be a rather small family affair, the girls can plan it without my help, but Mary and Matthew's wedding will have to be a society affair and I will have to do most of the planning for that wedding. I shudder to think about having to organize it with my mother here. She will drive me up the wall. And the planning will take months. But we'll see. Maybe I can convince her to go on a tour of Europe or something."  
"You don't like your mother, do you? Well, who can blame you? She is an unstoppable hurricane."  
"It's not that I don't like her. I just get along best with her if there is an ocean between us." Her mother-in-law actually laughs about this and she has to laugh too. Eventually Violet looks at her pensively and then says  
"Cora, if your mother really comes here and then stays for months, I will do my best to keep her out of your hair. I don't like her, that is not a secret, but even if you are almost well again when she arrives, you will still need a lot of rest and respite, especially when you are organizing a society wedding. And you won't get rest or respite with that woman around you all day."  
"Thank you Mama."  
"You are welcome dear. And now I will have to face dinner with the chauffeur."  
"Tom. His name is Tom."

Out of habit he walks into Cora's room without knocking before going down to dinner and is rather surprised to see his mother there.  
"Mama, I am sorry, I didn't know you were in here."  
"Don't you ever knock?"  
"Do you knock when you enter your own room?"  
"This isn't your room Robert, it is Cora's."  
"She doesn't mind."  
"I don't care Robert, you knock when you enter other people's rooms. Have I taught you nothing?"  
He looks at his wife for help but she looks as gleeful as a child on Christmas morning and he knows he won't get any help from her, not right now anyway, he is on his own. But if it makes his wife happy, he is willing to fight about trivial things with his mother.  
"You have taught me many things, but never anything on how I am to conduct myself when I am alone with my wife."  
"No, that was your father's task and he always knocked."  
"Probably because you made him knock." Cora is trying her best to keep a straight face and she is more or less successful. He is sure that his mother doesn't notice how hard she is fighting against laughing but he notices it and throws her a sideways glance that says 'you watch me, there is more to come'.  
"I didn't make him do anything."  
"You are in a mood for jokes todays, Mama." He hopes she will take the bait.  
"I am never in the mood for jokes, Robert. And you better be less cheeky. It is your behavior we are discussing at the moment."  
"I already told you, I see nothing wrong with entering this room through that door without knocking."  
"But you don't know what awaits you on the other side."  
"Usually my wife. And today, apparently, you."  
"You don't know what she is doing in here, I mean when she is not sick."  
"I have a pretty good idea of what she is doing in here when she is not sick."  
"Pretty good?" His mother's imitation of his imitation of Cora's American accent is horrible.  
"Yes."  
"What do you do if her maid is still in here?"  
"I sit in the chair and wait. And talk to Cora. If the maid is dressing her."  
"And if she is undressing her?" He can't believe his mother has asked this question and he wonders if she isn't putting on a show for Cora as well and if she is, he is rather thankful to her, although he hates talking about this, especially to his mother. But he supposes that Cora will thank him for this when she is well again.  
"Then I send the maid away", and finish the job myself, but he doesn't dare to say that last part out loud.  
"And you accept that?" His mother now looks at Cora disbelievingly.  
"Yes." Cora is almost exploding with suppressed laughter now.  
"How do you get undressed then, if he sends the maid away? You can't get out of a corset by yourself." He can't believe his mother just said that and it lets him think that she does not know that he is just teasing her for Cora's benefit, she would have been more careful with crossing lines then.  
"Your son has many talents you don't know about." Now he has to suppress loud laughter because of the look on his mother face, but he knows that he is turning bright red in the face because he also finds this very embarrassing. Maybe he has taken this too far.  
"Punching like a man doesn't seem to one of those talents." His mother now looks pointedly at his right hand.  
"I made a man ten years younger than myself fall over."  
"By punching him like a girl and breaking your hand in the process."  
"I thought it was very gallant of Robert. And we got rid of Carlisle that way." He smiles at Cora in thanks now and has the fleeting impression that his mother is smiling too, but when he looks at her she looks rather indignant.  
"But you needn't have broken your hand, had you known how to throw a punch."  
"I know now, Tom taught me. So the next time I have to hit one of my daughters' suitors, the impact will be stronger and my hand won't have to be put in a cast after the deed has been done."  
"You let the chauffeur teach you how to punch people."  
"No. I let my future son-in-law teach me how to punch people."  
"I am going downstairs. Cora, I'll say goodnight to you now because I don't want to wake you later. Robert?"  
"In a minute."

She feels dismissed by her son but she supposes that he wants a moment alone with Cora and she cannot begrudge him that, so she leaves the room, but as soon as she is outside she realizes that she has forgotten her scarf and the moment she opens the door again, she sees Robert throwing himself backwards onto Cora's bed and they both begin to shake with laughter. She shakes her head at them but leaves them be. If they are happy with that kind of indecent behavior there is nothing she can do about it and she is in fact happy that they are happy.  
She meets the chauffeur at the top of the stairs and he looks at her unsurely for a moment but then offers her his arm. She wonders if Robert or Sybil or maybe Robert and Sybil and Cora engineered this to happen.

"Lady Grantham," the chauffeur says rather charmingly and she takes his arm because not taking it would have been very impolite.  
"Granny," Mary says as soon as she and the chauffeur have entered the drawing room. Her eldest granddaughter almost comes running and then hugs her, just as Cora had warned her the girl would do. "Thank you Granny, I love you." She gives Mary a kiss on the cheek and says "You are welcome my dear," and thankfully Mary lets go of her then.  
She mainly listens to Matthew and the chauffeur discussing matters of the estate over dinner and she wonders why Robert doesn't change the topic of conversation, but he seems to be listening intently and even gets involved from time to time. She wants to tell him that this is not an appropriate conversation for the dining room, but she supposes that she should be glad that Robert cares about the estate at all with Cora still being so sick, so she lets him be. Surprisingly, not all of Branson's comments and ideas are strictly socialist, some of them are probably rather good, judging by the fact that Matthew agrees with almost all and Robert with more than half of them. What surprises her even more is that it becomes obvious that Branson knows how to behave in a dining room, he doesn't use the wrong piece of cutlery once and he didn't even flick his tails when he sat down. She wonders if Matthew has given him lessons, not only on how to conduct himself in a dining room but also on how to react to her barbs. The chauffeur can obviously hold his own, but Cora has told her that he is intelligent and well-read and that seems to be true.  
At the end of the night Sybil stands next to her before she leaves and asks  
"What do you think of Tom, Granny?"  
"He looks rather dashing in his tails." It is true and she really doesn't know what else to say. She can't agree with Sybil marrying a servant, nor can she agree with Robert and Cora for allowing such a thing but she supposes there is nothing she can do about it.  
"He does, doesn't he?" Sybil replies, gives her a kiss on the cheek and then says "Goodnight Granny," and walks back into the house. She watches her until the new chauffeur takes her home. She doesn't like this one; he seems to be as intelligent as Tom.


	10. Chapter 10

AN: I am sorry for making you wait this long, but there is nothing I can do about it. There most likely won't be an update tomorrow, I'll try my best to get one up on Thursday, but I can't promise that it will work.

eyeon, I hope you like this formatting better. There are two changes of perspective (I am wondering if I am changing the focalizer to often, but I hope it is ok this way) and I indicated them by vertical lines, I hope this is alright.

To absolutely everyone who has ever reviewed any of my stories: Thank you! It really means a lot to me and I always get excited when I see that I have gotten one or more reviews.

Kat

* * *

He has been living at the Abbey if not as part of the family then certainly as a guest of the family for over four weeks now and while he hasn't gotten used to their lifestyle, he isn't as opposed to it anymore as much as he used to be. There is no one who is more surprised by this than he is himself and he thinks that his changed perception of this kind of lifestyle has a lot to do with the family. Sybil he is of course in love with, she can hardly do any wrong and she is a little rebel, but compared to her sisters she is a lot less of a rebel than he thought she was. He always imagined Sybil to be the only one of them who would speak up to and oppose their father, but she isn't, both Mary and Edith do this as well. To his surprise, Robert doesn't seem to mind his daughters not always agreeing with him and certainly not always doing what he wants, the 'high and mighty earl' as he used to think of him even seems to enjoy talking to his daughters about things on which they do not agree with him. Moreover, Robert does not only listen to Matthew when it comes to matters of the estate but also to Tom himself and that surprises him the most. Robert doesn't always agree with them, in fact he has had two shouting matches with Matthew in the library over the course of the last two weeks, but he accepts that sometimes his future sons-in-law have a point, even if he does so only grudgingly.

Mary and Edith are not what he thought them to be either and he has realized that every member of the family has a public role to play and while their public personae certainly don't oppose their private personae, there is quite a perceivable difference. Robert is much more relaxed and liberal in private, Mary is much more of a pragmatist liberal, much friendlier and more lovingly when no one but the family is around and Edith is a lot less timid than she seems to be in public. In fact, she is quite an open person and not dumb at all as he thought she was. He once got up a lot earlier for breakfast than usual and when he wanted to enter the breakfast room Mr. Carson shook his head at him and so he stayed outside. Only Robert and Edith seemed to be in the breakfast room and Edith asked

"What's in the news Papa?"

Her father then read of a number of headlines for her and Edith repeated one of them and the Earl then read the article to her and asked "So, what do you think?"

They had then started a discussion on what should be done with war refugees and he had been quite impressed by the almost socialist views that Edith had had on the topic. Eventually Mr. Carson had nodded at him and he had entered the breakfast room and when he later asked Sybil why he hadn't been allowed in any earlier, she told him that it was habit of Robert and Edith's to go down first and to discuss a newspaper article of Edith's choice and that they always did so alone.

Robert's continued care for Cora also surprises him, he had of course known that their marriage was not a loveless one but he would never have imagined Robert being so close and almost dependent on his wife. He once mentioned this thought to Mary and she had looked flabbergasted and said "Cross out the 'almost', Tom, and then you got it right." She then turned to Matthew and smiled a brilliant smile at her future husband that spoke of so much love that he knew that Mary would become just as dependent on Matthew as her father was on her mother.

Even the Dowager is not as bad he thought. She still calls him Branson and she sometimes refers to him as 'the chauffeur' when she pretends that he thinks that he is not listening, but it could be much worse. She still throws barbs at him, but Matthew told him that the best way to deal with them was to counter them and he can certainly do that. Matthew believes in the theory that the Dowager who didn't like him either when it first became apparent that he was the heir now likes him quite a lot for two reasons: because he truly loves one of her granddaughters and because he can hold his own in argument. "And both of those things are true for you Tom," Matthew said and clapped him on the shoulder. And while Tom can't imagine the Dowager ever really liking him, he doesn't think that she hates him either.

He has been walking around the estate for almost an hour when he hears someone call his name. He turns around and sees Robert walking towards him.

"There you are. I was looking for you."

"Did I forget anything?"

"No, you didn't."

"How is your hand?"  
"Still in a cast." When Robert says this he looks like a little boy who has been told that he won't get any presents for Christmas and Tom has to be careful not to laugh about him.

"Do you regret punching Carlisle?"

"Absolutely not. Although I wish you had taught me how to throw a punch without breaking my hand sooner."  
"I didn't know that was part of my job." He knows he is sailing close to the wind now, Robert doesn't like being reminded of the fact that his daughter is about to marry a former servant but he just couldn't help himself.

"Yes," Robert replies. "Now that you have mentioned your job description. It appears that I am not the only person Matthew has shouting matches with over the estate."

He has no idea where this is going but he is intrigued. "Who else has he fought with? Mary?"

"Probably yes, but when are they not fighting. But that is not what I mean. He has apparently had a shouting match with Jarvis too."

"The estate agent?"

"Yes."

"I take it that Jarvis wasn't very happy about this."

"No. In fact he was so unhappy about it that he quit."

"That is not good."

"I don't know. Matthew and he had very different ideas about how to run this estate and that wasn't very good to begin with, but be that as it may, Matthew and I are in quite a fix now because we can't run the estate without an agent, even if I were to get involved full time again, which I don't want to do anyway, not yet."

"How can I help with that?"

"You could become the new estate agent."

"No." There is no way he can do this, it would mean staying at Downton and helping run a kind of estate he thinks should be broken up. Or thought should be broken up. But quite besides that, he doesn't think that he has nearly enough knowledge about estates and farming to be any good at this.

"Tom, you have all it takes. You know about farming, about this estate and you get along with both Matthew and I."

"I don't want to stay here. I appreciate you letting me stay here for a while, but this was never the plan, this is only until Cora is well again."

"Which will be at least another three months."

"Robert, I am honored by your offer, don't get me wrong, but I can't live here, I can't become an aristocrat."

"You are marrying one."

"Yes, but we can't stay here forever. I am not exactly liked here. Quite besides the fact that this is not the kind of life I want for myself or my family."

"Who doesn't like you? I thought we had made it plain that you are more than welcome here."

"Yes. You and your family have made that plain. But the servants have made it just as plain that they do not welcome me here. You know how Mr. Carson looks at me and how Thomas talks to me."

"I'll have words with them."

"That won't help. It might shut Thomas up and stop Mr. Carson from looking at me as if I was some sort of dirty fly, but it won't make them change their minds."

"Tom, they have to get used to it."

"They won't. Do you know what Mr. Carson said, when I told him that I was going to marry Sybil? He asked me if I had no shame."

"I am sorry about that."

"Thank you for that, but it won't change my mind."

"Tom," Robert says and places a hand on his shoulder. "I would appreciate your help very much. And I would like it very much if you stayed here. I don't want Sybil to leave, she is my child and I hate the thought of her leaving, but I don't like thinking too much about you leaving either. You are part of this family, or you very soon will be and no matter what you may think, we do like you very much. For loving Sybil but also for who you are."

This touches him and he knows that what Robert says is true.

"I'll think about it."

"Thank you. That is all I can ask of you. Let's go inside, it is almost time for lunch."

"There was nothing in the newspapers about us today." 

* * *

"It is the third day in a row that they've left us alone."

"I suppose there are more important stories out there than that of a Turkish gentleman dying in a Lady's bed, especially if that happened six years ago. Even if her younger sister is about to marry the chauffeur."

"I think Sybil is getting a little impatient. But we'll know more after today."

"Yes." Her husband now stares into the distance with an empty look on his face. She takes his hand and squeezes it. "Robert, the worst he could say is that my recovery might take longer than anticipated, but that would not be a disaster and why should he even say that?" Robert only smiles at her weakly. He is still afraid of every one of Dr. Clarkson's visits, because although it is obvious that she is getting better every day, he still doesn't quite believe that she will recover. The shock and fear of her illness have hurt him much more than her.

When the doctor comes into her room, he announces that he has got both good news and bad news for them. "The good news is for you Lady Grantham. I think it is safe for you to walk around the house again and once you have regained a little more of your strength, you might consider taking short walks outside." She is unbelievably glad about this. She has been allowed to walk around her own room for a week now, but she was not allowed to leave it and having been stuck in the same room for such a long time has been driving her mad. But the prospect of walking around the house again, maybe even going outside again has turned her world quite a lot brighter now.

"What's the bad news?" her husband asks. The doctor raises his brows and then says "Your hand Lord Grantham, will have to be a in a cast for at least two more weeks."

"I hate not being able to cut my own food. I feel like a child."

"I am sorry. Robert now actually looks like a small child and she slightly shakes her head at the little boy that is sometimes still inside her husband.

"What?" he asks her after the doctor has left.

"You are cute."

"Why?"

"Because sometimes you look like a young boy."

"I thought I was your knight in shining armor." He is rather indignant now and she feels sorry for what she has said.

"You are darling, of course you are."

"Now you are just humoring me."

"No, I am not." She really isn't, he really is her hero, she has been married to him for almost thirty years and he still sweeps her of her feet almost every day.

"If you say so." She thinks it is time to change the topic of conversation because if she continues this, Robert will be in a bad mood for the rest of the day and she doesn't want to do that to anyone because it is hard to be around Robert if he is in a bad mood. He is generally a very gentle person, but if things don't go his way or if he feels belittled he can become rather harsh and sharped-tongued.

"I think I'd like to have dinner with the family again soon." He looks at her and raises his eyebrows.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"You aren't strong enough to get through a whole dinner yet."

"How do you know?" How does he know? She feels better every day, she is allowed to walk around, why shouldn't she get through a dinner?

"If you can get down the stairs and back up again by yourself, you can attend a family dinner." This is something she would usually fight him on because he is telling her what she can and what she can't do, but she won't fight him on this. He is probably right and he has taken such great care of her that he doesn't deserve a fight over this.

"Alright love."

"Mama said your mother wanted to come here."

"Yes. My mother has realized that being my mother means that she should be there for me while I am sick, but thankfully your mother has been able to keep her at bay so far. She fabricated some story about American bodies not being able to deal with English illnesses. I am almost sure that most of it was utter rubbish, but Mama and I had a good laugh and I am thankful to her for keeping my mother away as long as possible."

It takes her more than two weeks to be able to walk down and more importantly up the stairs again without help and she is sure that she wouldn't have been able to get there without her daughters' help. Mary had mainly helped by stopping the most senior servants from attacking her with questions as soon as they saw her out of bed, but Edith and Sybil had actually practiced with her. Those two had been incredibly patient, especially so when things didn't go her way. She marvels at the development her daughters have gone through since the Spanish flu. They are of course still themselves, but they have all changed. Sybil has become a little less rebellious, although Tom being allowed to stay at the Abbey is certainly responsible for that. Mary has become softer around the edges so to speak and she knows that her eldest daughter had been the one who had been afraid the most, that strong independent woman had been sure that she couldn't live without her mother. But Matthew certainly has played a role in this too. Edith has become a lot less timid and more open, not just with her but with her sisters as well, especially Mary. Fights between those two have become a lot less and Robert has told her several times now that Edith and Mary carried the conversation at the dinner table without fighting once. She wishes she could have witnesses that but maybe she will be able to see it today. Robert has kept his promise that she could have dinner with them once she could get up and down the stairs and her maid is now getting her ready for her first dinner downstairs since the day of Lavinia's funeral.

As is his usual custom, Robert comes into her room before he goes downstairs and he smiles at her in the mirror.

"You look beautiful," he says but she knows it is a lie. She is too thin, still a little pale, she still looks tired and worst of all, she looks old. But she doesn't want to fight with him, not now, not when all he wants is to be nice and encouraging. So she smiles back at him and says "Thank you, darling."

"Anthony Strallan wrote and asked if he could come for dinner sometime next week."

"What did you say?"

"Nothing yet. I wonder what he wants." She raises her eyebrows at him in a motion she hopes he will understand to mean 'Let's talk about this later,' because she knows what Strallan wants but she doesn't want to say it in front of O'Brien, because she and Robert will have to discuss this before doing anything.

Edith came to her yesterday and told her that she had written to Anthony, that he had written back to her and that she had then visited him. Apparently he took a bullet to his right arm and now can't use it anymore, but Edith said that 'it would not bother her'. When she asked her daughter what she meant by that, Edith told her quite plainly that she was still in love with Anthony and wanted him to come to Downton to see where it would lead. She asked her daughter whether in her hopes and dreams this would lead her down the aisle and Edith smiled at that and nodded and Cora's insides had turned into a knot. Not because that would mean that all her daughters would be getting married within the next six months, if it hadn't been for the war, they'd all have been married by now, but because she has mixed feelings about Anthony. When she invited him for dinner for Mary's sake, although Mary did not like it, she had been sure that Mary would not take the bait, it had been meant as a lesson for Mary and when Anthony had then shown interest in Edith, she and Robert had not interfered because they had been a little afraid that Edith would never catch the eye of a gentleman at all and Anthony seemed a respectable solution at that time. But that had been before the war, the world has changed since then and she isn't sure whether she wants her daughter to marry a man who is as old as Robert but opposed to Robert is also not quite whole anymore. Robert doesn't seem old to her, but she already thought that Anthony seemed older than her husband before the war and who knows what the war has done to him besides ruining his arm. If she is honest with herself, she feels more comfortable with Sybil marrying a former servant than with Edith marrying and old, injured veteran. But she also wants her daughters to be happy and if Anthony Strallan is what or rather who will make Edith happy then she probably shouldn't be in her way.

"By the way, Tom has said that he will work as the estate agent at least until you are well enough for them to leave." So Robert did get her meaning.

"Really? Why only until then?"

"He wants a trial period and I think he needs some time to convince Sybil to stay here. It seems as if Tom was much less reluctant to stay here than Sybil." Robert looks rather confused and maybe even a little amused by this but it doesn't surprise her. Sybil loves Tom, she is sure of it, but one of the many reasons Sybil fell in love with him was that he could offer her a different kind of life and now the boy is thinking about staying at Downton, the home that Sybil had wanted to leave so desperately. She hopes that Sybil only needs a little time to get used to the idea because she wants her to stay; it would be so nice to have at least Mary and Sybil at the Abbey with their husbands and hopefully future children.

She dismisses O'Brien now but before the maid leaves the room, Robert says to her "Don't stay I up, I'll help Lady Grantham later on."

O'Brien only answers "Very good your lordship," but Cora is sure that rumors will be flying through the servants' hall as soon as O'Brien has entered it.

"Robert," she says exasperatedly.

"What?" he asks.

"First of all you know that we can't, not yet, but you also know that that is what the servants will think we are doing."

He walks towards her now and wraps his arms around her. "I don't care what the servants say. I want you to myself. And now let's go downstairs; otherwise my mother will think that we are doing it right now."

"Robert."

"Sorry darling."

Dinner is a pleasant affair, Mary and Edith really do not bicker and Violet is trying her best not take Isobel's baits, but she is rather unsuccessful at it. It doesn't bother Cora, Violet fighting with someone is almost a traditional part of family dinners and she is just glad that she isn't fighting with her.

Despite Robert's predictions that she would be too tired to go to the drawing room after dinner, she leads the women through and although she has to sit down again immediately, she doesn't feel incapable of staying in the drawing room. Violet sits down next to her and takes her hand, something that is very unusual for her. "I am glad you are doing so much better." She knows this is heartfelt and she squeezes Violet's hand in thanks before letting go of it. "But I am not sure how much longer I will be able to keep the Queen of Sheba on the other side of the Atlantic."

"I appreciate the effort you put into this and you have kept her in America for a lot longer than I would have been able to do. So thank you for that."

"You are welcome my dear girl." Violet has never called her that before and she thinks that her mother-in-law has not realized what she has said, so Cora doesn't comment on it. Edith then helpfully asks Sybil rather loudly whether she and Tom have set a date for the wedding yet but Sybil shakes her head and says that she would like to wait at least one more week before making anything definite. The men the enter the drawing room too and Violet vacates her place on the sofa immediately to make room for Robert who smiles at his mother and says 'Thank you'.

"How are you my dear?"

"I am very well Robert, don't worry."

"I just don't want you to relapse." He is still so scared and she wonders if he will ever get over her near fatal illness. Robert stays close to her the whole evening and he is very sweet to her and it reminds her of the time when they were courting. Of course his motives are very different now. Now he is sweet to her because he loves her and he wants her to feel at ease and before they were married he still wanted her to be at ease but not because he loved her but because he wanted her to marry him. Although she often wonders whether he would really have been so sweet _to_ her if he hadn't also been sweet _on_ her, they got along well right from their first meeting on after all.

When it is time to go upstairs, Robert and she leave the room together and as soon as they have reached the bottom of the stairs, he puts his right hand on the small of her back. It isn't appropriate, strictly speaking, but there is no one watching and Isobel and Violet have already gone home anyway, so the only people who could see them are their girls and Matthew and Tom and she supposes that none of them would be too shocked. The servants might see them of course, but she isn't too worried about that, the worst rumor they could spread would be to tell people that the Earl and Countess of Grantham are in a physical relationship with each other and that is old news, almost everyone who has ever heard of them knows that. Robert guides her into her room and instead of letting go of her, he turns her towards him, puts both of his arms around her waist and says "I love you."

* * *

She smiles at him and says "I love you too" and it makes his heart beat a little faster. He knows that she is not yet really well again, he can see that she is very tired, but they are on the verge of getting their normal lives back and they are both looking forward to that immensely, even if that means that two and possibly even all three of their daughters will get married. Although he supposes that that is much harder on him than it is on their mother. He wants to kiss her, not out of desire, although he desires her of course, he has always done that, but out of love. He is scared of asking too much of Cora, but she smiles at him in a way that says 'go ahead' and so he leans forward slightly and isn't surprised when she meets him half way. It is a very light kiss they share, not much more than a touching of their lips, but Cora puts her hands into his hair eventually and he slowly deepens the kiss until they are kissing in a way he is sure they shouldn't, not yet. But he can't stop it, he wants this kiss so much, it is a kiss that mingles his relief about Cora's certain recovery with his desire and most of all his love for her and he knows that the kiss has the same meaning for her as well. So he pulls her close to him without breaking their sweet and yet fiery kiss. It is Cora who pulls away at some point and she looks at him and then says "Robert, if we don't stop now, we won't stop at all but we have to stop. No matter how much we don't want to stop," in such a husky voice that it is hard for him to not kiss her again. But he lets go of her reluctantly, very reluctantly and Cora smiles at him again and says "soon, my darling." He closes his eyes for a second to catch himself and when he opens them again, Cora has stepped away from him a little to give them the space they need right now and he smiles at her and says "yes."

* * *

Adama-roslinlove: I hope you liked this as you have been waiting for it for quite some time :)


	11. Chapter 11

AN: Longest chapter yet, although only by a hundred words I think :)

Very, very optimistcally thinking I might be able to update tomorrow morning, but I don't think so, which means that the next update will most likely be on Sunday (I am going away for a few days although I will have to take my work with I am afraid)

Anyway, as always thanks for all the reviews and the support! Let me know what you think about this, please :)

Kat

* * *

He takes a few deep breaths, smiles at her and motions to her to turn around because he did tell her lady's maid to go to bed, although right now he wishes he had not done that. He enjoys helping Cora at night, but more often than not, going to sleep is not what they do right after he has helped her and it is very hard for him to keep a grip on himself right now. Although he muses that he should not be complaining about that, his struggles are a testimony to how happily married he is, how well this marriage works on all levels. So he steadies himself, helps Cora out of her dress and opens her corset for her, but he is careful to not let it fall to the ground.

"I am going to get changed now as well," he says to her.

She smiles at him in the mirror and says "Maybe it would for the best if I did the rest without your help, darling." He chuckles at this, she deserves a kiss for saying what she has just said but a kiss would lead to more, to what is still too much for her, and so he goes to his own room. He doesn't bother ringing for his valet, he does not like him and it only reminds him of the fact that one of his best friends is unjustly stuck in prison. He can get changed at night without help, he is not a small child after all, and if the valet feels put off because so far Robert has told him that he won't need him after dinner every single day, then he cannot change it.

He deliberately takes longer than absolutely necessary because he wants to make sure that Cora is dressed again once he goes back into their room. When he opens the door, she wears her nightgown and sits at her vanity with her hair flowing down her back. He steps behind her, takes her hair into his hands and wordlessly begins to braid it. She smiles at him in the mirror again and he smiles back at her, remembering how surprised she had been when she found out that he could braid hair. It had been on their wedding journey and she had gotten very sick on a long train ride through Italy. It had been the first time that he had read to her and when they finally arrived at the hotel she looked so tired and sick that he decided to not call for her lady's maid but to help her himself. Her first lady's maid had been picked by his mother, she had been picked as spy and Cora knew it and was thus very apprehensive of her. Cora and he had been married for almost four weeks by that time and he had already had a little experience in helping her undress. After he had helped her to get out of her clothes, she had put on her nightgown herself, he did not have any experience in dressing her, he still doesn't, and she sat down at the vanity. Without saying anything, he started to take the pins out of her hair very carefully, brushed through it, once it had all fallen down her back and then braided her it. This took her completely by surprise and he told her that his sister had taught him to take pins out of a woman's hair and how to braid it because she had thought that it might come in handy.

Once he is done with it now, he lets go of her and sits down on the edge of their bed.

"Thank you darling." He only smiles at her because he is too busy staring at her to say anything. She looks so much better. She looks better now than she did that afternoon or right before they went down for dinner. She still looks a little sick but she seems to have become ten years younger within the last four hours.

"You look so much better now. Maybe you could join me on my walk tomorrow."

"I'd love to," she says, gets up and sits down on her side of the bed. He turns around to look at her again and realizes how much he looks forward to their walk. Cora has accompanied him on most of his morning walks for the last thirty years, she even did that before he realized his feelings for her and he has always enjoyed it immensely and their walks are among the things he has missed the most.

"So, what about Strallan?" He knows there is more to it than just a simple request for a dinner with old friends, Anthony would have invited him and Cora then and not asked for an invitation from them and the look Cora threw him when he asked about it earlier told him that they need to talk about it.

"Edith wrote to him and he replied. She also visited him at least once, though I can't tell you whether it was more than once."

He has now moved up the bed, sat down next to her and put an arm around her without conscious thought.

"What do we make of it?"

"I asked Edith what she wanted and she wants to marry him." The look on Cora's face tells him that she isn't too happy about this.

"I take it that that does not make you happy."

"No. Robert, I want our girls to be happy, and Edith might really be happy with him for a time, but she'd be marrying a man our age. A man, who last time I saw him appeared to be ten years older than you, even if he really isn't that old."

Cora is right, he always had a hard time imagining that Anthony Strallan and he were the same age. He seems so much older and he finds him very boring. He is a nice man, there is no doubt about it, but he is as dull as paint.

"I don't know what she sees in him, Cora."

"I am afraid she sees the only man who has ever shown any real interest in her."

"Do you think that she really loves him?"

"Yes. I don't know why, but I am sure that she does."

"Then we should invite him here."

"He is a cripple. I know you don't like the word, but he took a bullet to his right arm and the arm is useless. Edith would be marrying a man at least a quarter of a century too old for her who has use of only one arm."

"Cora, I know it doesn't sound good, I am not thrilled about it, not at all. But do you really think that we can allow Sybil to marry the chauffeur and live with him here, but not allow Edith to marry a gentleman, just because he is older and injured?"  
"Robert, I don't know. When you put it like that, then we have to invite him, yes. But the chauffeur is young and whole and healthy. Imagine Edith and Strallan had a child. The father of Edith' baby would be more than 50 years older than his own child. Edith's children's father would be as old as their maternal grandparents."

"Does Strallan want to marry her at all?"

"I am not sure, but Edith is determined to make him want to marry her."

"Cora, I don't like this either but I think we should invite him, see how it goes and I'll talk to him, see what he thinks."

Cora has now put her head onto his shoulder and she sighs audibly. "Robert, I don't think of us as old. I may look old right now, but I am not yet recovered and it will be better soon. We aren't young but we aren't old either. It'll be quite some time before we are old, but we will be old more than twenty years before Edith will be old and I am just afraid that she'll be the nurse of an old man by the time she is fifty."

"Let's invite him here and once I know what he thinks, we'll talk to Edith about it. We have to make her aware of what she is about to commit herself to for the rest of her life."

"Let's hope for the best."

"Yes." Although he has no idea what would be the best. Just like Cora he wants all of their daughters to be happy, but just like her he doubts that Edith would be happy with Anthony for a long time. He and Cora have been happily married for almost thirty years now, by the time that Edith would be married to Anthony for thirty years, he'd be eighty and quite possibly dead, especially since he has always seemed older than he actually was.

* * *

She has been walking along different paths of the estate for some time now and eventually she sees her parents walking in front of her. It is raining slightly and her father holds an umbrella over both him and her mother and her mother clings to his arm as she always does when they are walking. Her parents have always seemed happy to her, they most likely are happy. She wants that too and she is sure that Anthony can give that sort of happiness to her. She was so happy when he had replied to her letter and when she saw him again she didn't cared about his arm, she was just glad that he was alive. He looked older than before, older and haggard, but she supposes that the war has taken its toll and when she took Anthony out for a drive and made a few jokes and he began laughing, he suddenly looked five years younger. And after all, her mother looks younger almost every hour, now that she is doing so much better.

She hears her parents laugh and as they walk up to a puddle, her father lifts her mother of her feet and puts her down again on the other side of the puddle. She is sure that her parents think that they are by themselves. They are quite uninhibited when the only other people around them are family but when they believe it to be the just them, they drop all sort of pretense and she is sure that she could have exactly that with Anthony. She isn't sure that her parents will agree though, but she has got both Sybil and Mary on her side. In a rather surprising act of solidarity both her sisters have assured her of their support should their parents be against her marrying Anthony. She is very thankful to both her sisters because she knows that when all three of them argue for the same side, her parents don't stand a chance. It has always been like that, when she and her sister had been small and all three of them wanted to have or do something desperately, they could always get their parents to let them do it or have it. They have always used this ability to their advantage, even over the course of the last fifteen years when she and her sisters hadn't really been friends. If necessary, they had become allies and she agrees with her Granny on the fact that being allies is much more effective than being friends, although she has the feeling that over the course of the last weeks she has become friends with her sisters. She has never really been at odds with Sybil but she almost hated Mary. She has of course always loved Mary too, but only ever in an 'I-have-to-because-she-is-my-sister' sort of way. But that has changed now. When their mother became so ill and Mary took over the running of the whole house by herself it had been apparent that although Mary was doing her work very well, she had also been quite overwhelmed. She was afraid for her mother's life on top of everything after all. And so Edith had decided that instead of hating her sister for having thought of running Downton for their mother first that she should offer her help. Mary had looked at her a little suspiciously at first but then agreed to share some of the duties and it has turned out that Mary and she work together rather well and that they often are of the same opinion. It had in fact been Mary who suggested she write to Anthony. One afternoon Edith had happened upon Mary and Matthew kissing in the library and Matthew had left as soon as they had noticed her. She had seen how happy Mary was in that moment though and she had congratulated her on the engagement. Of course she had done so before, but it hadn't really been heartfelt then. But after seeing her sister and Matthew together like that, she knew that it was real love and not ambition that had let to the engagement. For some reason Mary hugged her and told her that she was sure that Edith herself would find a love like that eventually as well.

"Are you making fun of me?" she asked her sister who looked a little taken aback but then answered

"No, Edith. It may seem like it because that is what I used to do, but no, I am serious about that. I am sure you will find someone you can be as happy with as I am with Matthew."

"You are the only one who is sure of that."

"Maybe you should talk to Sybil then." She was hurt then, because obviously her sisters had talked about her and it hurt to know that Mary and Sybil got along so well and that she was some sort of outsider in their little group of sisters who are exactly like their mother. She of course knows that this is not true, Mary is much more like their father than their mother, but in that moment all the jealously she ever felt towards Mary came back and she was about to throw something rather unkind at Mary when Mary had continued to speak.

"We worry about you, that's why we sometimes talk about you. We think you deserve to be happy; we want you to be happy, Edith. That is all. We've all changed because of the war and everything and we all deserve to be happy. Sybil and I have already found that happiness, but you haven't and it makes us want to help you."

"How? By making men interested in you and then passing them off to your less beautiful sister?"

"Is that what you think we are doing?" Mary looked shocked at that and there were tears in her eyes.

"That's what you have been doing for the past eleven years at least."

"I am sorry it seemed liked that and that I was so selfish. Really, I am. And I am sorry about Anthony. I shouldn't have done that, no matter how much you hurt me." In that moment she had felt a horrible pang because it was when she realized that while she had thought that she might engulf her sister in a few weeks of scandal because of the letter to the Turkish embassy, what she actually had done was destroy every hope of her marrying Matthew because it had brought home to Mary how horrible her mistake had been.

"But we are over and done with that aren't we Mary?" She hoped that Mary would agree, Mary had found hre happiness after all.

"Yes. Edith, I think, and Sybil does too, that you should write to Anthony Strallan. Tell him what happened, I'll talk to him if he doesn't believe you."

Anthony believed her and also said that he wasn't mad at Mary, that he knew what fighting with a sister was like and that the war would have put everything on hold anyway. He is such a kind, loving, forgiving man and she wants him more than anything.

Her parents now turn around toward her and for a second she feels as if she had been caught spying but both her parents seem to be happy to see her.

"Edith," her father says and then tells her about Anthony's letter and his decision to invite him for dinner. It makes her happy and she hugs her father and gives him a kiss on the cheek.

"Thank you Papa." He looks a little taken aback but smiles at her.

"Edith," her mother says but then stops speaking.

"What?"

"Nothing. Forget it." She smiles at her mother now, she is almost sure that her mother wanted to caution her, wanted to remind her of what she might be committing herself to, but she has discussed all of this, the age difference, Anthony's injury, the fact that he has been married before with Sybil and Mary and she is sure what she wants.

"When is he coming here?"

"Why don't you pick a day and then drive over to his house and invite him?" She can't believe that her father is so kind to her.

"Yes. Thank you."

"Pick any day you like Edith, but not before the day after tomorrow, please," her mother says to her and this is a wish she can easily fulfill. She is sure that her mother asks this because she doesn't trust herself yet to host a dinner party, even if there is only one guest out of the ordinary.

"Yes. Mama, he knows you've been sick. Don't overtax yourself. He doesn't expect everything to be perfect." Anthony was very sorry when she told him about her mother's illness. He had of course heard that Lady Grantham had some health problems, but when she told him how close her mother had been to dying, Anthony had hugged her and told her that he was sorry that he hadn't been there for her.

Her father now chuckles and then says "He may not, but your mother will." Her mother then looks at her father, swats his arm and says "Robert," and they both begin to laugh. She has the feeling that she should leave her parents to themselves again, they deserve it, they shared their house with scores of injured men for over two years. So did she and her sisters of course, but they didn't have a marriage to navigate at the same time. By the end of the war she had had the feeling her parents weren't getting along that well anymore, but whatever the problem was, it seems to have either solved itself or been solved by her parents. She doesn't care either way, she is happy that they are happy and she wants to give them the space they need.

"I'll go inside again. I'll ask Mary if there is a day she would prefer and then I'll go over to Loxley."

"Edith," her mother says again and when she looks at her she has a very soft expression on her face.

"Yes?"

"Thank you for asking Mary. And don't drive too fast."

"You are welcome and I won't." She turns around and walks back to the house but she can hear her father say

"You know that she will drive too fast. Tom says she is quite reckless." Maybe she should ask Tom whether he really thought that she was driving too fast.

Once she is inside the house she asks for Mary and eventually finds her in the kitchen, making some request about dinner. She is still rather surprised by it, but Mary quite looks in her element when she is downstairs with the servants. They respect her and she is nice to them but she also makes clear that what she says counts. She also knows that when there is something concerning the servants that Mary doesn't know how to deal with she talks to Carson first and she is almost sure that the servants know this is as well. Maybe that is what makes them respect Mary so much. She decides to settle the matter of the dinner right there, so that Mrs. Patmore and Mrs. Hughes can get in their say as well and once a day has been decided on she leaves again.

* * *

She is happy for her sister, at least for the time being their parents seem to have decided to let things with Edith and Anthony progress, although she is almost certain that their parents don't know how far those things have progressed already. Anthony hasn't proposed yet but it is only a matter of time and Mary is sure that it will happen within the next two or three weeks. She hopes for the best, she really wants her sister to be happy, but she knows the concerns her parents will have about this marriage and she can't help but agree with them.

"A penny for your thoughts, darling."

"Matthew. I didn't notice you." She smiles at him and he smiles back at her. She must have been in the library for five minutes already and as Matthew is sitting on the sofa, reading a newspaper he must have been in here all this time.

"I know. But you seemed preoccupied so I thought that I should give you a little time."

"I am preoccupied."

"Come. Sit here and tell me about it." He indicates the space next to him and she as soon as she has sat down, he puts an arm around her and pulls her close to him. "What is worrying you?" His voice is so velvety now that all she wants to do is kiss him but while that would certainly be very nice, it wouldn't help her right now.

"Edith. And Anthony."

"Strallan?"

"Yes. He's coming for dinner, Mama and Papa have invited him. Officially. It is of course Edith who will deliver the invitation and who is behind all this."

"I thought you wanted her to be happy."

"I do and I've talked to her about all the things I think speak against that marriage and she has done away with all of them, but I am still not sure that she isn't making a mistake. Quite besides the fact that I think that she has not told Mama and Papa how far things between her and Anthony have progressed already." Matthew gives her gentle kiss on the top of her head now and then leans back again.

"The last point you can do nothing about. Edith is an adult just as much as you and Sybil are. Your parents hopefully don't really know how far things have progressed between us. I hope to God that they don't know how many liberties we have taken since announcing our engagement. So you should not get involved in what Edith may or may not have told your parents. And you've already told her that you think that she might be entering a rather difficult marriage but I thought that she had you convinced that she knew what she was doing."

"Yes, but I still worry. I couldn't imagine marrying someone as old as Papa."

"But she can. And your father isn't that old."

"Maybe not, but I still don't feel comfortable with that marriage."

"Mary, you are not the one who has to feel comfortable with it. Leave it be."

She now looks at Matthew and she knows that he is right. It is not her business. "You are right," she says and then for what feels like the millionths time gets lost in his deep blue eyes. He leans forward and captures her lips in a kiss. It sends a shiver down her spine and reminds her of the things they sometimes to at night in his room. Matthew hasn't slept at his mother's house once since their engagement, claiming that he has too much work to do on the estate. She isn't sure whether her parents really believe that but they are probably too happy that she and Matthew are finally getting married to voice any objections, and Tom stays with them too, after all. But she hopes that they don't know that she sometimes sleeps in Matthew's room. Matthew and she are careful, very careful and they don't do anything that might lead to her becoming pregnant, although they would like to do that very much. But she is too scared of becoming pregnant too early and Matthew is too much of a gentleman to do what would be necessary for that to happen before they are married anyway, although it has turned out that Matthew is much less of gentleman in the privacy of his bedroom than she would have expected. But she does not hold it against him, not at all. She supposes she is much less of a Lady than he thought she would be too but so far he has not complained. Quite the opposite.

"Mary!" It is her mother who has just entered the library and she is glad that her mother is by herself because she has no idea how her father would have reacted. Matthew jumps up from the couch and he looks so sweet looking so guilty. Her mother shakes herself, probably to collect herself and then looks at Matthew and says

"Matthew, Robert is looking for you and Tom. He wants to talk about one of the tenant farmers to you. Why don't you look for Tom and then go about your business?"

"Yes," Matthew says and Mary is surprised that he didn't say 'Yes, mam.'

As soon as Matthew has closed the door, her mother begins to laugh.

"He sometimes is like your father, it seems to be a trait found in all Crawley men. They always look like little schoolboys about to be in trouble when they are found doing something they should not be doing, strictly speaking." She has no idea what to reply to that, although she supposes it to be true.

"Has Edith talked to you about at date for the dinner yet?"

"Yes. We'll do it next Tuesday."

"Good. Mary, Sybil wanted something from you, I think she is in her room."

"Thank you, Mama." She starts to leave the room, but once she has passed her mother, she feels her mother gripping her wrist.

"Mary, look at me," she says, but her mother doesn't sound unkind so Mary thinks that there is hope for the telling off not being too bad. "I am very, very happy for Matthew and you, don't ever doubt that. Mary, I know that you sometimes spend your nights in Matthew's room and I won't breathe a word of it to anyone, not even to your father. But please be careful. I know that Matthew won't ask you to do anything you don't want to do, but don't do anything that might get you pregnant, not just yet. I want you to have children, having children is wonderful, but not too early. We'd be able to cover up a month without telling your father and two if we told him but not more than that. Keep that in mind, please." She is stunned. She always knew that her mother was rather liberal but she would not have expected her to be that liberal.

"Papa would kill me, wouldn't he? If I became pregnant before I was married?"

"Your Papa would like to have grandchildren. As do I. But we'd both much rather have them without causing another scandal first."

"Have you talked to Sybil about this?"

"Yes."

"Good. Because I think" Her mother shakes her head now.

"Don't say it. I know what you think and I think the same and I think it is rather convenient that their wedding won't be a society affair and won't take a long time to plan."

"Mama, Sybil and Tom want to get married as soon as possible. They haven't said anything because they didn't want to stress you but I would be more than willing to help with organizing their wedding. And keeping Grandmama out of your hair should she want to come here. In fact, Granny and I have decided to form a battle plan in case Grandmama really wants to come before Sybil's wedding and only leave after mine."

"You have? What is that plan?"

"We haven't actually made it yet. We only talked about that yesterday, but knowing Granny, she'll probably have written several books on strategy when I go to visit her in the afternoon." Her mother is laughing now, really laughing and Mary thinks that it does her mother an unbelievable amount of good.

"Well, thank your Granny for me then. And thank you to you too. If your father doesn't need Matthew here, take him with you when you go and visit your Granny. She likes him very much."

"I know. She told me. I seem to have made quite the catch. Both Granny and Papa approve of my future husband."

"I approve of him too."

"I know Mama. But you are the easiest one to convince on matters of the heart."

"I take that as compliment."

"I am afraid that Grandmama won't approve though. I think Matthew isn't ostentatious enough for her."

"Your father isn't ostentatious enough for him either and she has been complaining about that to me for more than thirty years. Mary, your Grandmama never approves of anything or anyone. Not even me, although I did exactly what she wanted me to do. She'll bring a lot of drama when she comes here, but don't get too upset about it, please."

"I won't. I am just glad that you are nothing like her. You are so much nicer and you are a much better mother."

"Thank you my darling girl. And now go and find your sister, she's been waiting for you for quite some time."

"Let's hope she doesn't want to tell me that I am about to be an aunt."

"She doesn't. She wants to talk to you about wedding dresses."

"That is much better."

"Yes." Both she and her mother begin to laugh now and her mother gives her a kiss on the cheek and then sends her on her way.


	12. Chapter 12

AN: I am really, really sorry about the delay, but I am swamped in work and there is nothing I can do about it. I won't make any predictions on when I will post the next chapter, because I really have no idea.

Hope you like this one though. Let me know what you think!

Kat

* * *

"Cora, I have to go downstairs now because I want to talk to Matthew and Tom before Strallan gets here." He has decided on a battle plan because he wants to find out what exactly Anthony wants and how he really feels about Edith, because while he might let her get married to a man too old for her if love was the only motive, he will certainly not allow it if Anthony's main reason for marrying Edith is that he needs an heir. That is if Anthony wants to marry Edith at all, but Robert has heard rumors that Edith went to Locksley four times within the last five days and that can only mean one thing.

"So you'll throw him to the lawyer and the socialist."

"Cora"

"What? It is true."

"No it is not." Of course it is, Cora has seen right through him but he doesn't want to admit it. He wants to ask Matthew to ask a few pointed questions and he needs to know what Anthony thinks about Tom. The boy has been living with them for a little over two months now and he likes him quite a lot, Sybil has made a good choice, if a rather unusual one. He still can't really agree with her marrying a servant, regardless of how much he likes Tom personally. He has realized that he probably feels about Tom the way his mother feels about Cora. His mother likes Cora very much and she had been very worried about Cora, but she still thinks that it was disgraceful of him to have married an American. He knows how much the strained relationship that is due to his mother's mixed feelings for and about Cora bothers Cora, it bothers him to no end too, and so he has decided to let the fact the he likes Tom personally be the guiding factor in his relationship to him. Sybil is going to marry Tom anyway and Robert thinks that he might then just as well accept his daughter's choice and be happy that she chose a nice and good man, someone who has her best interests at heart, who really loves her. One of Sybil's former suitors is Larry Grey, but with the outbreak of the war that had come to nothing of course. After the war but before the Spanish flu Robert had briefly wondered about inviting Larry to Downton, to see where it would lead, but he had never really felt comfortable about Larry, that boy always seemed a little vicious to him and if he is honest with himself, he knows that he prefers Tom over Larry.

He wants Tom to provoke Anthony a little, not too much, that would be unkind, but if Anthony were opposed to Tom, he would feel even more uncomfortable towards Anthony than he already does. So he needs to talk to both Matthew and Tom before the dinner begins, preferably without any of the girls being around.

Both Matthew and Tom are in the drawing room when he gets there, but the girls are still upstairs. He has a slight suspicion that Cora might be keeping them there, before the war she used to spend time with the girls before going downstairs when they had guests, usually to instruct them on who was to sit next to whom and why. He doubts that Cora is doing that now, why should she, Mary and Sybil have found their future husbands and most likely so has Edith. When he tells Matthew and Tom what he wants them to do, they both smirk at him but don't object.

The girls and Cora all come into the drawing room at the same time and when Anthony arrives just a few minutes later, Robert notices how Anthony gapes at Cora, though he doesn't know whether the man is surprised by how well or how bad Cora looks. To Robert she looks well, not yet her old self, but obviously on the way there, but he supposes that to an outsider, who did not see her when she was still seriously ill, she might look rather tired, haggard and sick. His suspicion is confirmed when he hears Anthony whisper "I thought you said that she looked better," to Edith. "Well, she was very sick," his daughter replies and leaves it at that. He however thinks that Anthony himself has aged at least 15 years since he last saw him five years ago.

Dinner goes well enough, even though Sybil seems to have developed her own plan of testing Anthony, because she announces that she and Tom have set a date for three and a half weeks from now halfway through dinner and by the looks on Cora's and Mary's faces he knows that those two at least knew about this. Edith obviously didn't, but she congratulates her sister and Tom in a heartfelt manner and Anthony congratulates them too without the blinking of eye, so the man either has a rather admirable amount of self-control or he really doesn't think it scandalous that the daughter of an Earl would marry the chauffeur.

* * *

"So?"

"So what?"

"Robert"

"What?"

"You know what."

"I don't." He loves to tease her because she is rather cute when she doesn't get what she wants and she usually starts to beg at some point.

"Robert, please."

"I don't know."

"Robert" She is now pouting like a child and he has to laugh about her.

"Alright. He loves her."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." He is sure that Anthony loves Edith, there is in fact no doubt about it. It is hard for him to imagine that a man his age could really be in love with one of his daughters, but Anthony was very sincere and open and he just had to believe him. Anthony himself seems to have slight reservations because of the age difference and true to Robert's suspicion, Edith has been the driving factor behind the relationship.

"What do the boys think?" He smiles at that, not because Cora asks about this, he expected her to ask about this, but because of how she asks it. Cora has accepted Tom as a family member, although she has spent a lot less time with him than Robert himself, and to her Matthew and Tom are 'the boys'.

"Matthew thinks that Anthony is genuine and Tom agrees with that. Anthony doesn't mind Tom by the way, after the boys left the dining room, Anthony told me quite plainly that he thinks highly of Tom and admires him for being able to transition from chauffeur to estate agent so easily and the Sybil has made a good choice."

"You were rather impressed and pleased with that, because it is what you think too."

"Is that wrong?"

"Of course not darling, you know that I think the same. And now come to bed, I am tired."

He acquiesces, of course he does, and he wraps his arms around her.

"Anthony thinks I look old. I heard him say it to Edith when he left."

"Darling, you still look sick, but not old." Looking sick makes her look older but he doesn't tell her that and it doesn't matter to him anyway because she will always be beautiful to him, no matter how old or sick she looks.

"Robert, what if I never again look the way I did before I got sick?"

"Cora, you don't look the way you did on our wedding day anymore either. It doesn't make me love you any less. You've changed, everybody changes with time. But to me you are more beautiful now than you were when we got married."

"Spoken like the good husband you are." She doesn't believe him and while it doesn't surprise him, he still wishes she would believe him.

"I am trying my best to be a good husband. But I am not lying when I say that to me you are more beautiful now than you were when we got married. I know you so much better now and all those years, decades of marriage, have changed the way I look at you. I never just see you when I look at you, I see our lives, I see what you mean to mean and of course you look beautiful to me."

"To you maybe, but not to others."

"I am not so sure darling. Men have always admired you and if I wasn't as sure of your love as I am, I would have gone green with jealously long ago."

"You flatter me." They are now both lying on their sides, facing each other and Cora is so close to him that he hardly has to move forward to kiss her.

"No. I am not flattering you. You still look a bit sick Cora, there is no denying it, but it gets better every day and I am sure that once you are on your feet again, I will have to make sure that everyone knows that you are mine."

She now kisses him and then says "You are a good husband. You said you were trying your best to be a good husband. You are very successful at that. Very, very successful."

"I am glad you see it that way." He is exceptionally glad that she sees it that way because he promised himself to be a good husband to her long ago. It was a promise he gave himself when she accepted his proposal. He had felt bad about the whole thing because he had had the feeling that Cora did not accept him just for the title and she gave up so much for what could potentially be a loveless marriage that he had thought that the least thing he could do for her was to be a good husband to her, to try to make her happy. She keeps reassuring him that he does and he believes it because she wouldn't lie about something like that, but he still can't get over his stupidity, even if it happened more than thirty years in the past.

"Robert, it's been more than 29 years. Stop beating yourself over the head with it." He knows she thinks that it doesn't matter, she has always thought that it didn't matter that he didn't realize his feelings for her earlier. She keeps saying that she knew he was going to fall in love with her anyway and he wants to believe it, he does believe it, but he still thinks that he ruined their courtship and wedding because they were a matter of business to him, although Cora has told him many times that he always was very sweet to her, so sweet that she keeps wondering whether he wasn't sweet on her as well.

"I love you." He kisses her again and she kisses him back and puts her hands into his hair and he pushes her onto her back, hovers over her and keeps on kissing her.

"Robert, we have to stop."

"I know." He doesn't stop though, he can't.

"Robert, I can't. I am sorry."

"Don't be." He still doesn't stop and neither does Cora. But when she starts to unbutton his shirt he puts an end to it.

"No, darling. I want to so much but we can't. You aren't well enough yet."

"I know. It's just, I want you too. I'll ask Dr. Clarkson how much longer we have to wait, because I can't wait much longer." He moves away from her now because he can't wait much longer either and if he doesn't move away from her now, he won't move away at all. Cora wouldn't object, she couldn't object, he realized that just now.

"Yes. We'll see what he says. Until then, let's not do this again, because I am not sure that I can stop again." It is a torture for him to sleep next to Cora every night, to spend so much time with her but to not be able to make love to her, but he keeps telling himself that this torture is a sign of their deep love for one another and that that is infinitely better than being stuck in a marriage with a woman he doesn't love or desire.

"Maybe you should read to me." She pushes a book into his hand, it is Sherlock Holmes and he is relieved about that because that does not involve much of a love story.

* * *

"Cora, my dear, I am sorry but your mother is coming here."

"I know, she sent me a telegram too." She hopes that none of her children look the way Cora looks now when they learn about their mother visiting them.

"Mary and I will distract her."

"How?"

"Well, we thought we should convince her to see something of Europe, now that the war is over. We planned a route that will bring her here only shortly before the weddings. When she is here, Isobel and I will keep her occupied and if that doesn't work, Rosamund will invite her to London." Cora is smiling at her now and it makes her happy. Thirty years ago, she would never have thought that she would want to help her daughter-in-law so much, that she would inconvenience herself to make Cora more comfortable, but then she would never have thought that Cora would make Robert so happy or that the poor girl would get so sick. But she looks better now, much better.

"Thank you Mama. Thank you very much. And thank you for convincing Isobel and Rosamund to help as well."

"You are welcome. And Cora, regardless of how much better you might feel, you are still not well again. You don't need your mother to drive you up the wall."

"Again, thank you." Cora looks so relieved that Violet thinks that this moment alone is almost worth all the work she has put into this and all the hours she will have to spend with Martha Levinson. But what is more than that, she can't risk Cora's health, nor can she expect her daughter-in-law to organize three weddings within seven months with that horrible woman around.

Shortly before the Queen of Sheba arrives a little over a week later, she doubts whether she should really have promised Cora to keep that woman occupied as much as possible. She hates Mrs. Levinson and Cora seems to be almost her old self and she wonders if Cora can't organize all the weddings and take care of her mother, but then she remembers how much she hated Martha Levinson being around and the ostentatious and unacceptable ideas that woman had when she had to organize Robert and Cora's wedding and she thinks that life will be easier for everyone if Martha Levinson doesn't get too involved. If that woman really goes on those tours they have planned for her, and Violet dearly hopes that she does, she won't be around for most of the time anyway.

When the rather fateful day of Mrs. Levinson's arrival comes, Violet doesn't go to the Abbey to welcome her; she doesn't want to have to see her any earlier than absolutely necessary and she will have to go to dinner at the Abbey. Isobel has thankfully been invited too, so that she and Cora won't be the only ones who will have to fight with that horrible American.

"Violet, we have to leave." She does not want to get into the car but Isobel is right, of course, they can't be late. So she gets into the car and sits down next to the woman Matthew and Robert both claim is her best friend. She isn't too sure about that. She certainly likes Isobel now, she has liked for quite some time and they get along a lot better than she originally thought they would. They fight all the time of course, but that seems to be part of their friendship for lack of a better word.

"Let's face the hurricane, then."

"You are always so cheerful."

"Do I look cheerful to you? Because if I do then I must be a really good actress."

Isobel only huffs at that but she doesn't care. She isn't cheerful, she is rather apprehensive of the months to come. Of course she is looking forward to the weddings, she wants her granddaughters to be happy and it looks as though they all will be happy. She still hasn't gotten used to the idea that Sybil will marry the chauffeur, although she supposes that the fact that Robert has made him the estate agent makes the whole thing a little easier to cope with, especially since Sybil is the third daughter and not the first. She doesn't agree with Edith marrying a man Robert's age, she thinks that this is not a good idea, but there is nothing she can do. Robert and Matthew have both assured her that Strallan loves Edith and that Edith loves him too and she supposes that the whole family just has to accept that. Mary is now of course finally doing what Violet already wanted her to do in 1913 and she is sure that both Mary and Matthew will be blissfully happy.

* * *

"Cora, why are you wearing a dark purple dress? It makes you look even paler than you are anyway."

"I am wearing it because I like it."

"Do you want to look sick?"

"No, mother."  
"Then don't wear dark dresses."

She looks at Isobel and they both roll their eyes, even Carson raises his eyebrows at them before he announces them.

"Cora, my dear, you look better every day. And the dress is wonderful and suits you very well." Cora smiles at her and says "Thank you, Mama." They may have a slightly strained relationship but when it comes to Martha Levinson they fight on the same side. Martha keeps criticizing Cora for everything the whole evening and Cora keeps ignoring her mother and it makes Violet laugh because Martha becomes more and more frustrated by the fact that she apparently can't agitate her daughter as much as she would like to, or rather not at all.

At the end of the evening Cora pulls Violet away from the others and tells her that she is very thankful for all the support and that she appreciates it very much.

"You are welcome. The dress suits you, I did not just say that."

"Thank you. I think the car is waiting for you."

"Yes. Good night, my dear."

During their journey home, she and Isobel don't talk much, they are both too tired, because spending an evening in the company of Martha Levinson is a most tiresome experience, though eventually Isobel turns to her and asks

"Do you think that Cora would have become like that, if she hadn't moved to England and lived the kind of life she did?"

"I don't know." She really doesn't know, although she supposes not. She is sure that Cora is a lot more like her father than her mother, although she doesn't remember much of Isidore Levinson, only that she had had the feeling that the man didn't feel comfortable signing his daughter's fortune away and making the girl stay in England for the rest of her life. She remembers that Mr. Levinson wanted to leave England the day after Robert and Cora's wedding because he said that he couldn't watch his little girl being drawn into a kind of life that didn't suit her and that Martha then started a fight over that with him that could probably be heard in the village. It had been obvious that it was more important to Cora's mother than to her father that Cora married a title and that that was a sore point between Cora's parents. The only other time she saw Cora's father was when both of Cora's parents came over to England shortly after Mary's birth. Mr. Levinson had seemed relieved by the fact that his daughter really was doing well, that her letters weren't a lie and not sugar-coated, that she really had married a man who loved her.

When Cora's father died a few years later, the poor girl turned into a wreck and for the first time in her life, Violet had felt sorry for her daughter-in-law. Cora loved her father dearly and Violet is almost sure that while Cora also loves her mother, that is a love based on duty and not actual affection. Violet has often wondered whether Cora feels the same way about her. Whether the girl loves her and if she does, whether it is out of duty. Violet supposes that it is, because she knows that she hasn't been a very good mother-in-law, especially not at the beginning. She had been ashamed that her son married an American for money and she had also been ashamed of not being able to dissuade her son from that plan and because she loves her son dearly, she projected that shame onto Cora, who had been a ready target. The girl was a foreigner and not familiar with all the rules of English society, especially not with the role that women were supposed to play. Cora had her own opinions and made them known, she contradicted people of higher rank, she spoke in a foreign accent and she quite unabashedly fought with both Robert and her and Violet hated her for it. Cora still does all of those things, when the Duke and Duchess of Suffolk visited them unannounced a little over a week ago and stayed for three days and the Duchess complained about not getting her favorite food every day, Cora had told her that she could either eat what was put in front of her or that she could lump it. The girl still speaks with an American accent and she still fights with everyone and especially with her and Robert, but now Violet finds all those things rather endearing. Thirty year ago, she had thought that such a woman was the wrong wife for Robert, but it turned out that she was exactly the right wife for him, her son needs a wife who contradicts him and fights with him if necessary. Violet knows that this is her fault, hers and Patrick's, because of the way they treated Robert when he was a child. They didn't have any children for a few years and then they had Rosamund and when Robert finally came along a few years later, the doctor who had delivered him had said 'you have a boy, which is lucky because you won't have another child'. Patrick's father had been dead by then and so Robert had been Viscount Downton, heir appparent to the Earldom of Grantham, from the moment of his birth. That coupled with the knowledge that they would never have a spare had led her and Patrick to pamper and spoil the boy. They had to make sure that he survived childhood, and that he wouldn't do anything too stupid later on. So Robert got exactly what he wanted more often than would have been good for him. The staff had also treated him like a prince, in a way he had been a prince to them, he ensured the continuation of the family line and thus their livelihoods and they treated him accordingly. Viscount Downton got what he wanted, both from his parents and the staff.

Because of Robert's disposition to be friendly, gentle and happy, being pampered and spoiled did not do him much harm, but by the time he was eighteen he had been a little air-headed and sure that the world would always go his way. Even when Patrick told him of their financial ruin, had told him that he would have to marry for money, Robert hadn't been too bothered, he had been sure that it would all work out in the end. Of course it did, but that is Cora's doing, not Robert's. Cora was the first woman, probably the first person to ever humble Robert. Violet overheard the very short conversation Robert and Cora had had after their first dance together and she still remembers it. Because the family had been able to keep the scandal of their financial ruin under wraps, every young woman had been swooning over Robert, he had been called 'a very good catch'. And so he had been in the eyes of all those who did not know about the family's troubles, the young and handsome heir apparent to an Earldom. He was charming, he charmed all the women around him and when he complimented them, they would blush and look at him shyly and flutter their eyelids. After his first dance with Cora, Robert complimented her by telling her that her dancing was 'delightful' to which Cora replied 'every savage can dance'. Quite besides the fact that he didn't catch the literary reference, Robert had been surprised by Cora's reaction, by the fact that she didn't blush and flutter her eyelids. She had humbled him and that had piqued his interest in her. Cora had been the first thing Robert ever really had to fight for, both with his parents and a substantial number of other fortune hunters who pursued her. In the end he won the fight, he convinced his father first and then Cora. To this day Violet has no idea how Robert managed to make Cora fall in love with him, he once told her that he didn't know either, but the girl did fall in love with him. And while Robert may not have loved her right from the start, or at least he did not realize that he loved her, he had been fascinated by her, more than by any other woman and wanting something he couldn't get in the blink of an eye had been good for him.

Violet herself had of course not realized that for a very long time and thus fought against Cora, even after the wedding. If she couldn't stop the wedding she at least wanted to show Robert that he had made a mistake. But Cora had held her own and eventually Robert had to make a decision, he could either be on his wife's or his mother's side and he chose his wife's. While that had made Cora very happy, it had made Violet furious and there had been fights, mostly about her treatment of Cora, between her and her son that sometimes broke her heart into pieces. It had been her own fault, she knows that now, Robert had been right most of the time, but during that time she sometimes couldn't believe how her dear boy talked to her, how much he opposed her. In the end that had been good for him as well, because it had taught him to go against his superiors if necessary, but if it hadn't been for Cora and her American love of harmony among family members, Violet would probably still be at odd ends with Robert over his wife.

This thought makes her chuckle, because Martha Levinson surely does not love harmony among family members, she prefers drama and fights.

"She wouldn't be who she is today but she wouldn't have turned into her mother either." Isobel looks at her rather confusedly. "What?"

"Cora, I am talking about Cora."

"We finished that conversation five minutes ago."

"I must have gotten lost in my thoughts then."

"Well, you obviously found them more interesting than me."  
"I like to keep my mind occupied." Isobel doesn't answer, maybe she is too tired to fight or maybe she just doesn't know what to say.

As usual the chauffeur drops her of first, she is the Dowager Countess after all, and when she says "Goodnight" to Isobel, her friend replies '"until tomorrow, when we battle on".

She will have to battle on because she won't, she can't stand for Martha Levinson's treatment of her still sick daughter, a daughter who had been so sick that Violet had been very afraid that she might lose her dear girl.


	13. Chapter 13

She tends to her husband's burns and tries to forget that he is in pain because the work is much easier to do when she doesn't feel sorry for the patient. She tended to more burns than she could count during the war, she knows what to do, but some of these wounds look bad and she wishes Dr. Clarkson was there. She knows what to do, but she'd feel more comfortable if he had a look at what she was doing and told her that she was doing well. During the war she had become much more than the auxiliary nurse she had originally trained for, Dr. Clarkson and Isobel had seen potential in her and thus taught her to do much more than she originally thought she would be allowed or able to do. She is still proud of that and she misses her work as a nurse. Dr. Clarkson offered her to work for the hospital, she'd have to do it as a form of charity, but she wouldn't mind, she wouldn't need money. She never accepted her wages during the war, she always gave them to the hospital as a donation, something both her parents and her granny had been exceptionally proud of. She misses them; she misses her family more than she ever thought she would. The last time she saw them was on her wedding day because Tom and she left the same day. That was seven weeks ago and they have been in Dublin ever since. It was her idea, her father had offered to pay for a 'traditional wedding journey' for them, they could have picked where they would have wanted to go, they could have chosen nice hotels, her Papa said he wouldn't mind paying for that. He said that both she and Tom deserved a break and Tom had almost agreed but she had insisted they go to Ireland. When she had accepted Tom's proposal, she thought that they would go to Dublin and live an easier life, that Tom would work for a newspaper and that she would work as a nurse. That had come to nothing with her mother's illness and Tom accepting the position as her father's estate agent. Of course that had only been temporarily, they still wanted to move to Dublin as soon as her mother was well again, but Tom had become more and more reluctant. He said that he thought that he had changed too much, that she and her family and changed him, but she didn't believe it, she didn't want to believe it and so she convinced Tom to at least give life in Ireland a chance. They've been living with Tom's mother for the past weeks, in a nice but rather small house with two bed rooms, a living room and a kitchen. There are no servants, she doesn't mind that and while she feels a little claustrophobic she is sure that she could get used to living in such a small space. She likes Tom's mother very much, the woman is very nice to her but she seems to be the only person living in Ireland who likes her. Tom's old friends don't even try to hide their dislike of her, within the first two days of their arrival, Tom got into three fights over her and she then made him promise to stop fighting over his old friends ridiculing her. He kept the promise, although he still got into a few verbal fights. His friends had teased him about not being a socialist anymore, about supporting the aristocracy. To show them that those accusations weren't true, he had attended some of the meetings they went to, meetings that were held to discuss how to overthrow the aristocracy. A few days ago Tom had come home from one of those meetings and he had been extremely worried but wouldn't tell her why. Tonight he left in a hurry after dinner, mumbling something about "I have to warn them, I can't accept that". Neither she nor her mother-in-law had had any idea what Tom was up to, but he returned a few hours later with burns on his arms. She told him that she would only tend to the burns if he told her what he had been doing and so Tom told her that at the last meeting, his friends and their Republican companions had planned to burn down the house of an aristocratic family living nearby. He had argued against that and only escaped being beaten into a pulp by running away. They wanted to set the house on fire tonight, so Tom had decided to at least warn the family, to give them the chance to leave. He couldn't go to the police, he'd endanger his life, but if he told the family, they could call the police. So he went to their house, introduced himself as the son-in-law of the Earl of Grantham and told them what was about to happen. The family had reacted accordingly, they had fled, together with the servants, or rather tried to flee because Tom said that when he, the family and the staff left the house, the fire had already been started. Someone threw a burning rag at Tom, he says he doesn't think that it was intended to hit him, but it has caused more than enough damage and this has shown Sybil that they will never be able to live here. She isn't welcome here and neither is Tom. There are people in front of the house now, screaming and yelling "traitor, snob, traitor, snob" and she knows that every single yell hurts Tom more than the burns of his arm.

"You haven't betrayed anyone Tom," she says soothingly.

"I told the family."

"And thereby saved quite a few lives."

"Those people out there, they don't know that your kind of people are human too. They forget that you just as anyone else have hearts and souls, that you love and mourn the same as anyone else." She is a little hurt by the 'your kind of people' but she swallows her comment, Tom is in enough pain as it is.

"Sybil? Tom?" It is her mother-in-law calling for them and when they go into the living room, Sybil's heart almost stops beating because there is police officer waiting for them.

"Mr. Branson?"

"Yes?"

"We have hurt that you were at the great fire."

"Yes. I tried to warn the family and the servants living in the house."

"So they claim. I should arrest you, but because the family have told us that you wanted to help them, we'll be kind to you. Leave Ireland now and we won't prosecute you."

"What?"

"Leave now, Mr. Branson. You are the main suspect, you were inside the house, and you have an injured arm, injured by burns. And you have a track record of attending the meetings during which this has been planned." She wants to object, she wants to fight for Tom's rights but his mother looks at her and says "I'll help you pack." So they pack and almost flee the house, and once they are at the harbor they are very lucky to catch the last boat leaving for England that day. Once they are in Liverpool, she wants to go to a hotel, but Tom shakes his head at her. "No, not here, there are Irish Republicans around here. Sybil, we have to leave this city tonight. There are still trains going to London." So they go to London and arrive there in the middle of the night. They don't know where else to go, so they go to her aunt Rosamund who is of course asleep when they arrive and who is certainly not pleased at being woken up, but when they tell her what happened, she lets them stay for the night and tells them to catch the first train in the morning to York and go on to the Abbey from there. "You are safer at the Abbey than you are here. Leave as early as possible, I'll telephone Robert while you are already on your way." She nods at her aunt's instructions, she knows she is right, they will be safe at Downton, and nobody will come there. So she and Tom go to bed and she can't help but cry. Tom holds her and kisses her softly and she knows that he is as sorry as her, that their grand plan of living a simpler life did not work out.

When they arrive in York rather early in the morning the next day, they don't have to change to a train that will take them to Downton, her father has sent a car for them and they are taken to the Abbey. When she sees the house she feels a little like a small child who set out to see the world and then returned because she found out that the world did not suit her, that she wasn't fit for it. That feeling evaporates however when she gets out of the car and her father steps forward first and wraps his arms around her. "Sybil," he says, "I am so glad you are safe. Both of you." He then lets go of her and pats Tom's shoulder quite like the way he pats Matthew's shoulder and says "I am so sorry Tom for what happened. Rosamund told me. But thank you for standing up for our kind."

"You believe me then? You believe that I wanted to help them and not set their house on fire?"

"Of course I do." Tom smiles and nods at that and they go inside.

Her sisters and Matthew most of all bombard them with questions and she has the feeling that they are all quite sorry for them and that none of them think the she failed at something or that she is a foolish little girl.

"So what are you going to do now?" Matthew finally asks Tom and she knows that everyone is listening. They actually wanted to make the announcement at dinner, but she is sure that Tom will say it now.

"We have decided to stay here. Robert, we'll take you up on your offer. I'll remain the agent if you want me to, we won't go anywhere." Her father smiles at this and he looks so very happy in this moment. She knows that her father had been almost sure that she and Tom would not return for some time. The evening before her wedding, her father had come to her room when she had already been in bed, reading, and he had sat down on the edge of her bed the way he used to when she was still a small child. "I'll miss you my dear girl," he said and took her hands in his. "I know you want a different kind of life and I won't stop you. Your mother and I have raised you to be independent, we can't turn around now and force you to stay. But I can't help being a little sad about you leaving. I am happy for you, of course, you are about to marry the love of your life, you will be very happy with Tom, I know that, but it won't stop me from missing you."

She wanted to cry at that but she held it together because in that moment she realized that she would miss her family very much, should she and Tom stay in Ireland. How much she had only grasped when they were there, but that night she had had an inkling of it.

"I'll miss you too," she told her father and he kissed her on the forehead and said "Goodnight my girl. I'll see you tomorrow when I'll walk you down the aisle." After her father had left, she broke down in tears, not because she was afraid of getting married, she was looking forward to it quite a lot, but because her father's words had touched her deeply.

Her father was the first family member to see her in her full wedding outfit and she thinks that she will never forget the way he looked at her. She had asked him "Will I do?" and he had only nodded. On the way to the church he told her that he was proud of her and wished her all the luck in the world.

When he walked her down the aisle she realized that the church was filled to capacity, something she wouldn't have expected because she and Tom had insisted on their wedding not being a society event. Mary and Matthew's wedding was supposed to be that and quite besides the fact neither she nor Tom wanted their wedding to be a society event, she and Edith had also decided that a huge wedding was what Mary wished for and deserved and that they would not lessen Mary's joy by making it less special because they wanted huge weddings too. Edith also told her that Anthony would prefer to only invite family members anyway. The people in the church were tenants and staff from the hospital who all seemed to want to wish them good luck. "We seem to be more popular than we thought," she said to her father to which he replied "How could you two not be popular?" before handing her off to Tom.

"Of course I still want you as the agent, Tom. You've done a very good job." Tom smiles at this and she knows that is proud of that compliment. Returning to Downton was a good decision after all.

* * *

She is happy that Sybil has come home three weeks earlier than she thought she would. Her little sister had of course promised to be there for the wedding, but it hadn't been clear how many days before the wedding Sybil and Tom would actually come to the Abbey and for how long they would stay. But now they seem to be staying indefinitely and it makes her happy. She will of course leave the Abbey and live with Anthony, but his estate is less than half an hour away from the Abbey by car and she will be able to visit her family whenever she wants to see them. Anthony has already bought her a car for her use only and she loves him for that. Not only for giving her a car of course, there are many, many things she loves about Anthony but his acceptance of her independence is very important to her.

The next three and a half weeks are a daze for her, they are spent with fittings for dresses and outfits and choosing what to take on the honeymoon and finally deciding on a lady's maid. She would have wanted to keep Anna of course, but Anna can't leave Downton because of Bates and she wouldn't leave Mary anyway. Anna and Mary are very good friends, their relationship goes far beyond that of a maid and her employer. That is true for both hers and Sybil's relationship to Anna too and she knows that both Anna and Mary agreed on Anna taking care of Sybil as well, but the relationship between Anna and Mary is special nonetheless.

When her wedding day is finally there she is so giddy with excitement that she thinks that she won't be able to sit still. Shortly before her mother and sisters leave her room for Anna to get her ready, she wanted Anna to help her one last time, Sybil tells her to ask her father 'will I do?' when he sees her for the first time. She has no idea why Sybil wants her to do it, but she does so anyway and her father almost wells up at the question. On the way to church her father tells her that he wishes her all the luck and happiness in the world and that he hopes that she won't forget about him when she lives in her own house. "I could never forget you Papa," she says to him and gives him a kiss on his cheek. "I wish it were true," he says and looks at her rather sadly. "Be happy for me, Papa, please," she asks right before they enter the church. "I am happy for you, my darling girl," he says and then the music begins and she is walked down the aisle. Anthony is waiting for her and when he looks at her she thinks that he doesn't look as happy as he should. Before the ceremony begins, Anthony leans over to her and asks "Are you really sure about this?"

"Yes," she answers, smiles at him and squeezes his hand. When they leave the church about an hour later as husband and wife, Anthony looks much happier, much more relaxed and also a lot younger. She can't remember ever having been this happy. When she and Anthony, her husband she thinks and smiles, are about to leave for the wedding journey, Mary takes her aside.

"Edith I know this is very stupid, but please make sure to be back for my wedding."

"That is four months from now, we will only be gone for six weeks." Sometimes her older sister is a little strange. They used to hate each other and now Mary wants to make sure that she will attend the wedding.

"I know. Edith, I know we haven't always been the best of friends, but I want you to know that I wish you all the luck in the world and that I am very happy that we are getting along much better now."

"I am happy about that too." She really is rather relieved by that because the constant fights with Mary had been wearing her out and being friends with Mary is so much easier than fighting with her. Her parents and grandmothers all kiss her cheek before she leaves and she happily waves back at them before they turn around the bend.

* * *

"You don't look happy, Robert."

"I just said goodbye to my daughter who is going on her wedding journey. It is not easy."

"Especially if you don't like the husband."

"What?"

"You don't like him, I can see it in your face. Your father looked exactly like that when Marmaduke whisked Rosamund off on their wedding journey."

"Papa liked Marmaduke." He is sure that his father liked Marmaduke, they got along very well and his father looked at Marmaduke almost as a second son.

"Later on, yes. Not at the beginning." That sounds familiar to Robert.

"Quite like Cora and you then."

"Maybe ."

"You like her now."

"Maybe. She did make you happy."

"She still makes me happy, Mama."  
"I know. Maybe you will feel better about this marriage one day than you do now."

"I doubt it. I am happy for Edith and I suppose in some manner even for Anthony, but I still think they made a mistake." His mother looks at him calculatingly, as if she was weighing her words, something she hardly ever does.

"Just say it."

"I doubted I would ever think that your marriage was not a mistake, but I was wrong. You didn't make a mistake when you married your American."

"My American."

"That is what she is." He sometimes has to bite his tongue to not fight with his mother. To her Cora's most defining character trait is still the fact that she is an American. To him that is rather unimportant. Her American upbringing has certainly influenced her personality but to him she is so much more than that.

"She is much more than just that." He doesn't want to say more on it because he doesn't want to fight with his mother who managed to keep Martha Levinson at bay by convincing that woman to travel across Europe for most of the time. He is very thankful to his mother for that because quite besides the fact that he simply does not like Martha Levinson too much, he is also glad that Cora isn't more stressed out than absolutely necessary.

"Robert, I know that. You will like Anthony eventually."

"I do like him. He is a little dull, but he is a decent and good man, I just think that Edith has condemned herself to a life of nursing."

"It is easier for you to accept Tom than to accept Anthony."

"As a son-in-law Tom is much easier to accept for me, yes." He prefers both Tom and Matthew over Anthony. They are 'the boys', he is almost sure they will eventually be 'his boys', Matthew already is and Tom is on his way there, but Anthony is a neighbor, maybe even a friend he has known as long as he can remember and that makes the man unfit to marry one of his daughters. But it has happened and as Cora likes to say, there is no use in crying over spilt milk.

"I'll go inside. Would you like to come?"

"No. Ask the driver to take me home. You need some time alone I think."

"Maybe."

Cora joins them again to say goodbye and as they watch his mother get into the car, he feels his wife squeeze his hand. "We'll have to get used to the thought that one of our daughters married a man our age, Robert. There is nothing we can do about it."

"I suppose not." He looks at his wife and marvels at how beautiful she is. She looks almost well again, only people who really know her can still see that she has been sick for a long time. He puts his arms around her and says "On a different note, you look very lovely today."

"Thank you, darling."

"I wish we could," he doesn't finish the sentence because just saying it would be torture for him.

"We can. Dr. Clarkson was here this morning and he told me so. Although I am not sure whether he really thinks that or because he was tired of my asking about it every time I saw him."

"I don't care, as long as he said we could." He lifts Cora of her feet and swings her around. She squeals with laughter and when he puts her down she asks him

"And you think that we should?" in such a teasing manner that he has to remind himself that they are in front of their house, not inside their room.

They spend a little more time with their daughters and Matthew and Tom but go to bed earlier than usual. They don't bother calling for their lady's maid and valet, they have no use for them today but as soon as the door to their room closes, he becomes apprehensive. He is not afraid of the act itself, they've done it thousands of times, but he is afraid of hurting her. It feels a little like their wedding night to him, he had been scared then too, had been scared of hurting her, of making her uncomfortable, of making her regret their marriage once she found out what they had to do. He had promised himself to make the whole things as pleasurable for her as possible then and when he came into her room, a room that has long since been theirs, at Grantham House he had kissed her and told her that he was glad that he had married her. Cora had looked as if she was stealing herself to do something then, he will never forget that look on her face because thinks that that was the moment she decided to not just be the dutiful wife who lies on her back and thinks of England, but that she was going to be the kind of wife he wanted her to be. He hadn't even known himself at that moment what that meant, but he had been about to find out. They got the physical part of their marriage right from the start, after the first few shy kisses that night they had both thrown rational thought to the wind and just followed their instincts. There had been nothing awkward about it, they had both been able to enjoy it right from the start and when he held Cora in his arms afterwards he thought that he really was happy that he had married her because apparently there were quite a few things that were rather easy to do with her.

"Robert?" She touches his face now and brings him back to the present. She is impossible close to him and looks into his eyes and her eyes are filled with love and desire. So he leans forward and kisses her, gently at first, but more urgently soon and when she kisses him back, divests him of his jacket and shirt in almost one go and then leads him over to their bed, he again stops all kinds of rational thinking. All he wants is her in those moments and he is sure that she wants him too and that makes the whole experience very, very pleasurable for both of them.

"I love you," he says to her once the ability to say something coherent returns to him. He is still hovering over her, her legs on his sides and she strokes his back absentmindedly. She smiles a brilliant smile at him, a smile that makes him go weak in the knees and then says "I love you too." They kiss again before he lies down next to her and pulls her close to him.

"We haven't done this in over a year," he says to her.

"It was high time then we did again," she replies, laughs and kisses his cheek.

"Yes." He can't say anything else because he is about to break down in tears. It has just hit him that if Cora hadn't lived they would never have gone past those horrible times at the end of and following the war, the last time they had made love would have been a perfunctory act that hadn't really be satisfying for either one of them. It had been an act of trying to rescue what they were about to lose but they had both realized that their hearts hadn't been in it. They know each other's bodies and needs so well that even that experience had been satisfying physically, but it had in no way been satisfying emotionally and they had both turned around, facing away from each other only minutes afterwards and not even spoken for a few days. He had tried again the day the war ended, he had gotten changed out of his uniform after his short speech and then taken walk, a walk on which surprisingly Cora had joined him. She even held onto him the way she used to do and told him that she had been impressed by his speech. They had kissed then and he thought about going upstairs with her right then, but there were soldiers all around them and for the Lord and Lady of the house to vanish in the middle of the day, shortly after peace had been announced, would have caused gossip. Instead he had tried to kiss her again when they were in bed that night, they still slept in the same room after all, but Cora turned away from him and said that she had to get up early the next day. In that moment he dearly wished that he had taken her upstairs earlier that day, had he done that, they would have made love again, they would have stopped falling apart, they could have, would have, saved their marriage that day. He still thinks so today and thinking about how much longer it took them to repair what had been broken between them drives tears into his eyes.

"Are you alright, darling?" Cora's voice is soft and sweet and full of love and concern.

"Yes. I was just thinking about something."  
"Something that makes you rather solemn." She knows him well, not too well, she could never know him too well because she is his wife and there is no such thing as a wife knowing her husband too well, not in a marriage like theirs, but she knows him inside out.

"I wish I had taken you upstairs that day."

"The day the war ended." Sometimes he thinks that she can read his mind.

"Yes. I think we would have had a real change of stopping the falling apart of our marriage much sooner."

"I was rather disappointed that you didn't take me upstairs. I took it as a sign that you didn't want to be alone with me right then."

"Oh, I wanted to very much."

"Robert, I wanted it too, but there is nothing we can do about it now and brooding over it won't help. We didn't fall apart after all, we are happy again, aren't we?"

"Blissfully happy, my darling."

"Good." She smiles and then kisses him in manner that is unmistakable. He briefly wonders whether he isn't too old for a repeat performance but as soon as he realizes that he isn't, he kisses her back, pulls her atop of him and forgets all about his brooding.


	14. Chapter 14

"Your lordship, there is a problem that I would like to address to you. Mr. Crawley won't do in this case." This must be rather serious for Carson to refer to Matthew as 'Mr. Crawley'. Carson may be the most formal and correct one of all the staff but even he has long since fallen into the habit of referring to Matthew as "Mr. Matthew".

"I am listening."

"It is about Mr. Branson, your lordship."

"Yes?" He hopes Tom hasn't offended anyone, that sometimes still happens to him. He does so unintentionally, having crossed the line from downstairs to upstairs is just sometimes still a little confusing for Tom, which does not surprise Robert.

"He needs a valet. So far Anna has taken care of most of Mr. Branson's things but with her being a proper lady's maid to both Lady Mary and Lady Sybil, someone else will have to take over that duty."

"Who do you have in mind?" He has no idea where this is going.

"That is the problem. Absolutely no one wants to do it."  
"He doesn't really need a valet. He just needs someone to clean his clothes and shoes and to help him tie his bow. I know he does the ties himself, he is quite good at it. Isn't there anyone who could take on those duties?"

"Absolutely no one, my lord."

"What about Moseley?"

"He is Mr. Crawley's valet."

"Mr. Crawley doesn't need him for much more than for what Mr. Branson will need a valet. Moseley can take care of both of them. He used to be Mr. Crawley's valet and Mrs. Crawley's butler. Now that he isn't Mrs. Crawley's butler anymore because Mr. Crawley has moved here, Moseley should be able to be the valet of both Mr. Crawley and Mr. Branson, don't you think?"

"Your lordship, you cannot ask Mr. Moseley to be valet to the chauffeur." That does it. He respects Carson, he has no idea how they would go on without him, he knows that Mary had been relying on him ever since she took over her mother's duties, he even likes the man, but this is too much.

"Carson," he almost barks and the butler automatically stands to attention. "You will never refer to Mr. Branson as 'the chauffeur' again. He once was a chauffeur but he isn't any longer, he is the agent of this estate and the husband of Lady Sybil. Mr. Branson will be treated accordingly in this house, by all the staff, as the husband of Lady Sybil and the son-in-law of the Earl of Grantham. I will not discuss this Carson, not with you, not with anyone. Moseley can either agree or not agree to helping Mr. Branson and if he doesn't agree, then it is up to Mr. Crawley to decide what to do about Moseley, although I dare say that Mr. Crawley agrees with me in thinking that one valet is enough for Mr. Branson and him."

"Very good my lord. But I will not tell Mr. Moseley about his new duties."

"I will do it then. Send him upstairs half an hour earlier and I will talk to him. He can start helping Mr. Branson right away because tonight will be white tie. The Dowager and Mrs. Crawley are coming to dinner." He is a little stunned by Matthew's speech, especially since both Matthew and Tom have just entered the room and they are both covered in mud. It is the first time that he has heard Matthew speak like that and he is impressed by it, he has spoken like an Earl, it is quite obvious that he won't accept any opposition. He has to smile at this and there is even a small smile playing around Carson's lips.

"Very good, Mr. Matthew," the butler says and leaves. He knows that even though Matthew wasn't exactly friendly to Carson, the butler had been impressed and relieved because Matthew sometimes is too soft and feels too guilty about saying what he wants, unless it concerns his job. Robert watched Matthew dress down a banker who had cheated one of the tenants a few weeks ago and he was exceptionally glad to never have been at the wrong end of one of those talks so far. It cannot be a very pleasant experience, although he is rather proud of Matthew.

"What happened to you two?"

"We fell into a well."

"Matthew fell into a well. I only helped him to get out of it." Matthew and Tom now both look a little sheepish and he has to fight the urge to laugh about them.

"Why did you fall down a well, Matthew?"

"I looked into it and slipped."

"Why did you look into it?"

"I wanted to know what was in it." When Matthew says that, for the first time, Robert doesn't see a grown man but the small boy Matthew once must have been. A lovely boy with a head full of unruly blonde hair and curious eyes. He is sure that Matthew was one of those children who never stopped asking questions and for the first time he regrets not having known Matthew as a child. It had always been a fact to him that he hadn't known Matthew, hadn't even known about him, before the Titanic sank, but now he wishes he had. He loves Matthew like a son, but the first memory he has of him is Matthew entering the drawing room at Grantham House when they met in London for the first time.

"You threw a stone into it and whanted to see it land. That's why you fell in."

"Tom, did you have to mention that?"

"Why not? Shouldn't Robert know what a child his future son-in-law is?"

"I am older than you."

"And more childish." Tom and Matthew keep on bickering. It is obvious that they aren't serious about it and Robert is sure that Tom was just as interested in the contents of the well as Matthew had been. It makes him happy that Matthew has found a friend his own age, he thinks the friendship between Matthew and Tom does both of them quite a lot of good. It has certainly helped Tom adjust and it has given Matthew a comrade in arms so to speak. While he listens to them and wishes he could have heard them bicker when they were children, Cora comes into the library, takes one look at them and then says "Boys, what has gotten into you? Go upstairs and get cleaned up, you have trailed mud all over the entrance hall." The both look at her a little guiltily and then leave the library, presumably to go upstairs.

"What happened to them?"

"They fell into a well."

"Into a well."

"Yes. It happens."

"If you say so." She rolls her eyes a little but he knows she isn't serious.

"Come sit with me." She walks over to the sofa, sits down next to him and he puts his arm around her. "My mother and Isobel are coming to dinner. The boys said so."

"So it's white tie then."

"Yes."

"Doesn't really make a difference to me."

"No, you always look beautiful, darling." She laughs a little now and he kisses her hand.

"Thank you. But I have to go upstairs now and get changed."

* * *

He looks at his valet and wonders how to begin this conversation. But then he reminds himself that he should just say what he wants. If there is one thing that he learned during the past couple of months, it was that he has to be more like Robert in many situations. If he wants to be accepted as the future Earl, he has to act like the future Earl. Robert is very popular with the staff, the staff are very loyal to the family and that is the way it is because Cora and Robert and to some extent Mary make it quite clear that they are the ones who make the decisions. They are still friendly to the staff and the tenants, they care for them and help them and they pay them rather well, they know when tenants get married or have children or when someone has died and act accordingly. They are part of the lives of their staff and tenants and the people look to them for guidance. They have started to look to him for guidance too and he slowly becomes more comfortable with it. Ever since he dressed down that banker in front of Robert and the tenant, some of the other tenants have come to him with their legal or semi-legal problems. He has talked to several more bankers, a few shop owners and several companies selling farm machinery. He has written at least 15 letters, threatening people with going to court and several tenants have told him that they now get much better offers from people and companies they want to buy something from or sell something to and he is rather proud of that. The people he helped are thankful for his help and because he doesn't need the money, he is happy to help them without getting paid. He wants to return to his job as soon as Robert gets involved into the running of the estate again, but he thinks that he will also be available to the tenants and the staff should they have need of a lawyer. They know that and maybe that is why he sometimes needs to remind them who he is, although that hardly makes any sense to him.

"Mr. Carson said there was something you wanted to talk to me about, Mr. Crawley?"

"Yes. His Lordship and I have decided to redistribute your tasks. As you know I prefer to do many things myself and need you less than his lordship needs his valet. That is of course not to say that I do not appreciate your work, because I do. But you can't be valet for me here and a butler for my mother at her house. So we have decided that you will also be the valet to Mr. Branson. He needs even less help than I do and you won't have more work to do than the valet of his Lordship at the end of the day. Mr. Branson mainly needs his clothes and shoes cleaned and mended and a little help when we have to attend a white tie occasion. So far Anna has done a lot of those things for Mr. Branson, but as she is now a proper lady's maid to both Lady Mary and Lady Sybil it would be asking too much of her to take of Mr. Branson's things as well and of course she can't help Mr. Branson getting dressed. You will start helping Mr. Branson tonight, because both my mother and the Dowager Countess are coming to dinner, but I am sure you know this."

"Be a valet to the chauffeur? No, I won't do it. He has dishonored this house." Sometimes Moseley is driving him up the wall.

"Moseley, you wouldn't be a valet to the chauffeur but to Mr. Branson, the husband of Lady Sybil."

"He is still the chauffeur. And what I am supposed to do when you and Mr. Branson are in two different places?"

"On most occasions you will stay with me then, although that will not be true for the time Lady Mary and I will be on our wedding journey, because we will only take Anna with us."

"I can't do it, Mr. Matthew. You can't ask it of me."

"I cannot force you, that is right. But it is up to me to decide what to do should you really refuse to be Mr. Branson's valet."

"His Lordship would never"

"Moseley. His Lordship and I have made this decision together. And maybe I should remind you that one day I will be the Earl of Grantham. So if you want to keep your job, you will assist Mr. Branson. And if you are too much of a snob to do that, then you will have to leave this household."

"I, I don't want to leave, sir."

"Then you must do as I ask you."

"Yes." He feels sorry for poor Moseley, his valet has never seen this side of him and quite opposed to Carson his behavior has not put a smile on Moseley's face. But he can't help it, Tom does need someone to mend and clean his clothes and shoes and he won't ask Anna to keep on doing it. Besides Carson, Anna and Bates are surely the most loyal members of their staff but Anna can't be expected to be a proper lady's maid for Sybil and Mary and a maid for Tom. The poor woman has enough on her plate as it is, with her husband still in prison. The trial won't be before December, by that time Bates will have been in prison for nine months. Both Murray and he tried their best to move the trial but neither one of them had been successful. He is rather worried about the trial, it doesn't look good for Bates. Matthew is sure that Bates is innocent and he wishes he could help him but he can't. He knows that Anna is suffering, she talks to Mary quite a lot and Mary told him a little about it and it makes him mad that an innocent man is held in prison for so long. Of course all the evidence speaks against him and as a lawyer Matthew agrees that the prime suspect should be held in prison, but this is different.

"That will be all, Moseley. Thank you. Please attend to Mr. Branson now."

He goes downstairs and meets Cora and Robert in the drawing room.

"How did it go with Moseley?"

"After I reminded him that I was the future Earl of Grantham he very grudgingly agreed to do it."

"So he wasn't as impressed as Carson?"

"No. But Moseley will have to live with it or look for a new position. I am not too attached to him, it's not as it is with you and Bates."

"Well, you and Moseley did not fight in the war together."

"No. William was my batman. He asked me if I would let him work for me a few days before we were hit. I told him that I would. We got along well, he was a nice young man. He died far too young."

Mary enters the room then and she looks so stunning that he forgets his conversation with Robert. Matthew still sometimes can't believe that she will be his wife in a little less than six weeks. He had been so disappointed when she hadn't accepted him in 1914, it had broken his heart and that heartbreak had hurt so much that he got engaged to Lavinia to prove to himself that he didn't need Mary. But once he saw Mary again in 1916, he had known that Mary would always be the one for him, even if there was no way for him to actually be with her. But now there is and he is over the moon about it. He stills feels guilty because of Lavinia and he doesn't believe in destiny and he thus can't tell himself that it was destiny that she died, he regrets her death, he regrets that she thought that her life was not worth living anymore because he loved someone else, but all that doesn't stop him from being blissfully happy with Mary. When he told his mother that he had proposed to Mary, he had been scared for a moment that she would tell him that he couldn't do this to the memory of Lavinia, the she was disappointed in him, but her reaction had been quite the opposite. She had smiled at him and told him that she thought that he deserved happiness and that she had always known that Mary was the only one for him. He knew that too and he spent many nights in the trenches wishing that the woman on the picture next to his bed was Mary and not Lavinia. He dreamed of being with Mary almost every night, he had hoped that getting engaged to another woman would have stopped the dreams but he was wrong. As soon as he lay down in bed he couldn't help but imagine Mary being there with him, cuddling up to him and whispering sweet nothings in his ears. After horrible days, especially on days when someone under his command had died or when he had been sure that he had killed someone, he imagined talking to her about it, imagined her telling him that he had done the right thing, that he shouldn't worry, that he didn't have another change, that is was his duty and that it wasn't his fault that men died under his command. And most of all that she loved him. When he woke up in the hospital and Mary sat at his bed, for a second he had thought that he had married her in 1914, that he hadn't stupidly proposed to another woman but it had all come back to him only a second after waking up and added to his living nightmare.

Mary now touches his arm. "Are you alright, my darling?" He smiles her. "Yes, of course I am." He squeezes her hand and smiles back at her. Her touch reminds him of the night before. It wasn't the first time that Mary had come to and stayed in his room, for the past four months or so she has spent many nights in his room, but it was the first time that they really had done what only married people should do. He had felt uncomfortable at first, but Mary told him that they should just throw caution to the wind, that it didn't matter if she got pregnant a little early and that she wouldn't think him less of a gentleman if he gave into her. He gave into her then and that had certainly been a very good decision, it has brought him and Mary even closer than they had been already and he can't wait to do it again.

* * *

It is the third time in a little over half a year that he waits at the bottom of staircase in the entrance for one of his daughters to come downstairs in a wedding dress. It is third time in a little over half a year that he will sit in a carriage with one of his daughters on their way to church and it is the third time in a little over half a year that he will walk one of his daughters down the aisle. All of this he will be doing for the last time because he only has three daughters and Mary is the last one of them to get married. When his girls were still small, he used to think that Mary would be the first one to get married, and that there would be five or six years in between his first and his last daughter getting married. But of course, a horrible war had come their way and turned all of their lives upside down. They got through the war years rather unscathed, they all suffered in their own different ways, his marriage almost broke apart over it but in the end they all survived and are happy now. He notices Cora standing next to him and he smiles at her. "We'll go to church now, darling. I'll see you there."

"Yes." He gives her fleeting kiss on the lips and she gently touches his forearm. "I love you," she says and he only nods and smiles. He knows she understands, he knows she knows that he is too emotional right now to say more than one syllable at a time. He looks at her one last time before she turns around and leaves and he thanks God again the she is still alive. It had looked so bleak for weeks and her recovery had taken such a long time. But even he isn't able to detect any signs of an illness anymore and Dr. Clarkson declared her to be 'completely back on her feet' weeks ago already. She regained all the weight she lost, she doesn't look older than she really is anymore, in fact she looks younger, there are no dark circles left under her eyes and her face has its normal color again. Men his age and older and younger than him are swooning over her again and he is sure that many of them will try to catch Cora's attention today. This wedding is a society wedding. The eldest daughter of an Earl is marrying a future Earl, there are more than 200 guests and the papers have been full of it for two weeks. For the first time since the war, their house is full to bursting point, all their rooms are spoken for, there are in fact so many guests attending this wedding and staying for a few days that some of them have to sleep at Locksley. Sybil and Tom have been sleeping in his dressing room for two nights now to free up two more rooms. The servants have had to move rooms too to at least provide beds for all the valets and lady's maids of their guests. He had been surprised by so many people asking to stay for a few days, but Cora had told him that for many of their guests this was the first really important society event after the war and they wanted to make the most out of it. All in all, there almost one hundred people staying with them for at least two days, some before and some after the wedding, and they have had to revert to serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the entrance hall, just as they did during the war, although this is of course a much happier occasion at least for most of them. It doesn't make him terribly happy. He is happy for Mary and Matthew of course, but the last of his girls, his first child is being taken away from him today. He knows that she and Matthew will stay at the Abbey, just as Sybil and Tom do and his relationship to Sybil hasn't changed much, if at all, after she got married, but as soon as Matthew and Mary have been pronounced husband and wife, he won't be responsible for any of his children anymore, that part of his life has come to an end. A very, very happy end, with three happy daughters, one son-in-law he likes at least enough to be thankful to him for making his daughter happy and two sons-in-law that he loves. Just as he had predicted, Matthew and Tom have become "his boys" over the course of the last few months. It has been nine months since Cora fell ill at the end of March 1919 and it is now the beginning of December. The war has been over for a little over a year now and he thinks that Mary and Matthew finally getting married, getting married to each other, is the final closure to the war chapter of the Crawley family's life, although it certainly doesn't solve the Bates problem, because his best friend is still stuck in prison.

He looks up when Anna comes walking down the stairs and says 'Here comes the bride' just as she said on Sybil's and Edith's wedding days. When he sees Mary in her wedding dress he is stunned by his daughter's beauty, just as stunned as he had been with the other two. As soon as she has reached the bottom of the stairs he knows what will happen and when she looks at him asks "Will I do?" the same way her sisters asked that question, he can't hold back his tears. "Oh Papa, don't cry." He can only shake his head because if he speaks he will start to stop uncontrollably. He is sure that his daughters talked about all of them asking him the same question, but he wonders if they know that their mother asked him that too when she arrived at the altar right before their own wedding ceremony. He had been overwhelmed by her beauty when he turned around to watch her walk down the aisle, something he strictly speaking shouldn't have done but did anyway, he must have looked like a fool and as soon as her father had let go of her and stepped back, she had turned to him and asked "Will I do? Can you ever be happy with me as your wife?" and he nodded then, out of instinct, rather than because of his feelings for her, but that nod had been more than just justified.

"Papa? There is such a thing as fashionably late, but if you keep staring into the distance without moving, we will be more than just fashionably late."

"Sorry, my darling girl."

Mary doesn't say anything on their way to church but shortly before they get there, he tells her that he loves her, that he is proud of her and that he is very happy for her, just as he told the other two and just like her sisters, Mary nods and smiles and tells him that she loves him too.

An hour or so into the reception he finds himself alone in the breakfast room, quite mad at several of the men at the reception. Those are all men he knows from school, they are all more or less his age and so are their wives, which means that those wives are of an age at which they won't be able to have children any longer. He had always known that once women reached that age, it wasn't uncommon that they strayed from their marriage beds and their husbands became more open about having a mistress and in many cases both husband and wife found new lovers among their own social circles. What he had not known, but should have known, was that both Cora and he would become targets to those husbands and wives. He has had to deflect three women already, for reasons he can't fathom he seems to be called 'a catch' among them again, but those three women are nothing compared to what seems to him like scores of men who try to get into Cora's good books and he wants to punch them all. He trusts Cora, that's why he could leave and hide, he is sure that she will deflect those men just as he deflected the women, but it still bothers him. He decides to go outside again and to show everyone around them that both Cora and he are still 'off the market' but runs straight into Mary because in his fury he didn't watch where he was going.

"Hello to you too," Mary says and smiles at him.

"I am sorry, I wasn't paying attention."

"I suppose not. Are you alright?"

"Yes."

"Papa, please don't lie to me." This child knows him too well.

"I am mad at all those men ogling your mother. I was on my way outside to show them that she is not available."

"I think she is quite capable of doing so herself. Although I admit that she has got her work cut for her. But so do you. Apparently there are quite a few women here who hoped you would marry them at the end of the 1880s. I heard two of them talking about trying their luck with you again because you still looked, and I quote 'rather handsome'."

"Did you say anything to them?"

"I said that they certainly agreed with Mama on that." He doubles over with laughter now. He is a little drunk and he doubts he would find it as funny as he does if he hadn't drunken those last two glasses of Scotch but he doesn't care.

"I hope your mother agrees with them." Mary now looks at him as if had said something rather stupid.

"Papa, of course she does. Haven't you noticed how she looks at you? She loves you more than anything."

"I love her too." Mary looks at him thoughtfully and he wonders what is on his daughters mind.

"Papa, what were you thinking about when you stared into the distance right before we left for church?" He wonders if he should tell her, if that is really for her to know or if that isn't something that should stay between just Cora and him but then he can't be sure that Mary doesn't know that story anyway and so he decides to tell her.

"That question you all asked me when you came downstairs, your mother asked me that too. When she stood next to me in front of the altar at our own wedding, right before the ceremony began. You took me on a walk down memory lane."

"Will I do?"

"Yes."

"Mama asked you that right before you got married?"

"Yes. I am still not sure whether she was joking but I doubt it."

"What did you say?"

"Nothing. She also asked whether I could be happy with her as my wife. I only nodded, I didn't trust myself to speak."

"Did you know then? That she would do? That you would be happy with her?"

"I knew I wouldn't be unhappy with her. It was a strange time Mary, and I was too young to really deal with it all. I am sure that had I not had the pressure to marry a woman with enough money but been allowed to fall in love, and your grandparents would have allowed that had we not gone nearly bankrupt, I'd have still married your mother."

"Papa, I am very sorry."

"About what? Today is your wedding day, Mary. You married the man I wanted you to marry and you married him for love. There is nothing to be sorry about."

"I mean that time when I questioned your motives for marrying Mama. Shortly before we heard that Matthew was lost." He has to think for a moment to remember what she is talking about but then he recalls telling her that Carlisle had written to him that day to ask for his permission to marry Mary and he had told Mary that he wasn't sure why she wanted to marry that man.

"You weren't completely wrong and I am rather ashamed of my motives for pursuing your mother."

"That is in the past. There is no use dwelling on it."

"Spoken like your mother. Who I will now rescue from the claws men undeserving of her attention." Mary gives him a kiss on the cheek and says "Good luck Papa. I'll come with you, I'll watch. I'll make Matthew watch too, so he knows what to do in the future." He shakes his head at his daughter and goes in search of her mother.

When he finds her, there are three men trying to catch her attention at the same time and she is talking to them but she looks up as soon as he really looks at her and her face transforms into a smile that tells him "I am glad to see you." So he walks over to her and without caring about propriety or what people will say, he kisses her on the lips right in front of those men. "I was looking for you," he says to her. She looks at him, smiles a brilliant smile and replies "Well, you've found me, my darling."

* * *

AN: This was the second to last chapter of this story. I don't know when I will be able to post the last one, maybe on Tuesday, we'll see.

This was also the last time that I started to post a story before I had finished writing it, so it might be quite some time before I start to post a (long) multi-chapter story again. I've got two stories in the works and also some ideas for several one shots, so I won't vanish, but my updates/ new posts will be very infrequent for some time.

Thanks for all the support and the reviews and everything else!

Kat


	15. Chapter 15

AN: Again, I am very sorry for the delay. As I said before, this is the last chapter.

I probably won't be posting new stories any time soo,n because I am still swamped with work, but I am working on one, or rather two new stories. I won't begin posting them before I've finished them though, because that just doesn't work for me very well.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this last chapter. Let me know what you think!

Thanks for all the support!

Kat

* * *

His lawyer, Murray, not Matthew, has called him and told him that the estate was in financial trouble, that his investment had gone wrong. He needs to go to London but he is very apprehensive of it, because he knows that he will be told that it looks very, very bleak. He doesn't want to go alone and contemplates asking Cora to go with him, but it is her money he has probably lost and while he knows that he will have to tell her, he wants to do that when he knows the full extent of his mistake and he thinks that it is he who should tell her, not their lawyer. But he can't face this by himself, he was afraid for so long when Cora was sick, unbearably afraid of losing her, that he can't stand any sort of tension alone anymore, so he asks Matthew and Tom to come with him. They will immediately understand what the lawyer is saying, and if Tom doesn't, than Matthew can explain it to him. This also means that he doesn't have to confess his terrible stupidity to his sons-in-law himself, at least not to those who are involved in running the estate. He still doesn't think of Anthony as a son-in-law, he can't, the man is his own age. He knows that Edith is happy and he is thankful to Anthony for making his daughter happy, but that is all he will ever feel towards Anthony. He doesn't really think of him as a friend, he thinks of him rather as a good acquaintance. Anthony is a nice man to be sure and besides maybe his age a man deserving of his daughter, because all he wants for his daughters is to be happy. But Anthony is not really his friend, they are too different, he can't help it, but he finds Anthony rather boring. He really only has two friend his own age, his cousin Shrimpie whom he likes rather a lot, even if he doesn't see him much and Bates, his valet. Cora of course is his best friend, but she is so much more than that that he would never put her in a list of his friends. The other two men he gets along with really well, who he might consider his friends, are of course Matthew and Tom but he has thought of Matthew as a son for years and he can't help sometimes feeling the same way about Tom, he is sure that rather sooner than later he will come to feel about Tom the same way, or almost the same way he feels about Matthew if he doesn't already and that would mean that just like his wife and daughters, Tom and Matthew would be much more than just his friends, and in fact they already are. He thinks of Isobel as his friend too, of course, he likes her quite a lot and he knows that Cora has finally gotten around to liking her again too, but that is something else.

He remains vague when he tells Matthew and Tom about the purpose of their visit to London, but he thinks that both his boys know that this will not end happily.

When the lawyer tells them that he has lost almost all of Cora's money; that the estate will most likely have to be sold, both Tom and Matthew look at him in disbelieve. They don't say a single word until they are at Grantham House, the three of them alone in the library. Matthew rounds at him then.

"How could you have been so stupid? How could you have made such an investment? Why didn't you ask my advice? I could have told you it wouldn't work."

"Matthew, I thought" he doesn't get any further.

"You don't think Robert. You believe. You believe that you know everything and don't need to think seriously about such matters. You keep telling me that it is our duty to keep Downton the way it is. Now we will have to let it go. In about seven months from now I will be a father and if that child is a boy, I will have an heir, but nothing to pass onto him." He didn't even know that Mary was pregnant. He wants to congratulate Matthew, wants to hug him and tell him that he will be a very good father, but Matthew keeps raging on. "I really don't understand it Robert, I really don't. How can a single person make such a mistake? How?"

"I don't know, I'm sorry, I"

"I just can't be in the same room with you right now," Matthew interrupts him and leaves. So he is left with Tom, who hasn't said a single word yet.

"Are you going to tell me off too? Lord knows I deserve it." Tom shakes his head.

"No. I won't. And you don't deserve that."

"I do."

"No. Believe me, you don't." There are tears in Tom's eyes and he wonders why.

"Tom, are you alright?" He asks this as gently as possible. Tom looks at him and simultaneously nods and shakes his head.

"I'll talk to Matthew. I'll try and make him see sense, I promise." While it touches him that Tom is on his side, he wonders what is behind this but before he can ask, Tom has left the room. So he goes upstairs and contemplates his fate. Matthew is wrong of course, he will have something to pass on to his heir, not the Abbey and the estate around it, but they have another estate, a smaller one with a smaller house, but they won't have to live on the street. And there is of course always the title, although he supposes that Matthew cares about that the least. He is not looking forward to dinner, but he supposes if he stayed upstairs, Matthew would get even madder and accuse him of hiding and that accusation would be just. So he makes his way to the drawing room but before he enters, he hears Tom's voice. He knows he should make his presence known, but he just can't, he needs to know what his boys are talking about in this moment.

"Really Matthew."

"It is true. It was foolish to the extreme."

"He made a mistake. Haven't you ever made a mistake?"

"Not such a huge one."

"No? Are you sure? And can you be sure that it will never happen to you?"

"Yes. I would never make a mistake as grievous as that. I would never ruin my family like that."

"And proposing to Lavinina wasn't a huge mistake then?"

"That is below the belt Tom."

"No, it is not. You have made mistakes Matthew, we all have and you have no reason or right to act the way you do."

"Yes I do. First he makes me the heir and then he just wastes everything."

"He hasn't wasted anything. Do you think he did it on purpose?"

"No. But he failed."

"At what?"

"At everything." This hurts him more than anything his daughters have ever said to or about him.

"Matthew, you are disappointed and I understand that, I really do. But you are overreacting."

"I feel as if my father had led me down."

"Because you think of Robert as your father."

"Yes." He wishes he could turn back time and undo the investment. He wishes he hadn't disappointed his son so much.

"He hasn't failed at being your father, Matthew."

"No?"

"No. He has taught you, no, us more than you ever learned at your schools or university."

"What has he taught us besides not investing all our money into the same enterprise? Something neither you or I would have done in the first place anyway?"

"How to run an estate. No, don't argue. There are many things about running an estate the he does exceptionally well. How to be a good employer. How to be a good husband. How to be a good father."

"Hm"

"Is that worth nothing? Isn't that worth more than anything?"

"I don't know."

"You do know. Stop being such a horrible prick Matthew. Robert has taught you better than that."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Why are you fighting on his side like that Tom? Why is it you who defends him in this?"

"Because you really do behave like a prick and because I don't want us to lose the relationship we have with him. I've never really had a father Matthew, and you can hardly remember yours." Tom doesn't say anything else but what he has said almost drives Robert to tears.

"Maybe you are right."

"Certainly I am right. In other news. I didn't know Mary was pregnant."

"No one knows, I wasn't supposed to say a word of it until she was ready to tell everyone. It just slipped out."

"She'll have you head for it."

"Yes."

He thinks that it is now safe to walk into the room.

"Well, Tom, we needn't tell anyone that Matthew has already told us. Just act surprised when they make the big announcement."

Matthew looks at him but doesn't say anything. The boy doesn't say anything during dinner either, but Tom behaves quite normally, so dinner is at least bearable. Tom excuses himself right after dinner and leaves him with Matthew and he would bet quite a lot of money on Tom having done this on purpose.

"Matthew, I won't mention it again before you make an announcement, but congratulations. I am very happy for the two of you." Matthew looks at him as if he wanted to ask him how he could be happy now, but then he briefly shakes his head and says

"I'm scared. I don't think I'll be a very good father."

"Why not?"

"Because I've done…things." Matthew doesn't want to talk about this, he is sure of it, but he also is sure that in the end it will be better if he makes him talk about it, no matter how uncomfortable they both might feel about this. But somehow in many ways Matthew and Tom have become his responsibility and he has failed his boys terribly, Matthew is right about that, and not just his boys, but his girls and especially Cora even more so. So the least he can do is help Matthew feel less insecure about becoming a father.

"You mean you've done things during the war." It is not a question. He knows what being in the trenches is like, what one is suddenly capable of doing. During the war in South Africa it didn't feel wrong to him to shoot at and kill other people, in fact there were a few times when a well-aimed shot at another human gave him satisfaction, even made him proud. He is ashamed of it now, but war is something else, it is hard to deal with and he still dreams of it. Not every night, but sometimes. He wakes up then, sweating and shaking and although it makes him feels like a child, he has to wake Cora too then because he needs her to talk to him in those moments to keep him sane. He hates it when he has those nightmares while he is away from her, because he has to deal with them by himself then and that usually involves rather copious amounts of scotch which usually leads to even more vivid nightmares about the war.

"Yes. I shot people. I killed people on purpose."

"So did millions of other men."

"It doesn't make it better."

"Yes it does. It was your duty, nothing else. You are not a killer Matthew, hardly any of the men who go to war are killers."

"But I did kill."

"Because you had to." It's what he tells himself, it's what Cora tells him whenever he wakes up from a nightmare.

"I sometimes just want to drink myself into a stupor."

"It won't make your demons go away, it will make it worse, believe me."

"I wish that wasn't true."

"But it is true. Don't start to drink to forget."

"It's getting worse. First when I came back it wasn't that bad, but it has become continually worse."

"Because you've had time to think about it."

"Will it get better?"

"Yes. You won't ever forget, but it will get better, you will dream and think of it less. Other things become more important again. Or become important for the first time."

"You already had your children when you went to war."

"Yes. And I thought they would hate me when I came back. I thought they would know what I had done and that they would hate me. That they would say that I wasn't their father anymore."

"What did they say?"

"That they were glad that I was home. They waited for me in front of the Abbey, although they were far too small to be allowed to do so, but Cora must have given in to them, even my mother didn't seem displeased. And when I got out of the carriage, they all came running and threw themselves at me. All three of them clung to me for weeks afterwards. I couldn't go anywhere without them following me. Mary was eleven at that time, but she still wanted me to bring her to bed every night for three weeks because she was scared that I wouldn't be there the next morning. She always got up very early and came into our room to check whether I was still there."

"That is a lovely story."  
"Yes. Matthew, I don't care to talk about the war and I know that neither do you. But sometimes talking about it helps and if you need someone to talk about it then let me know, please. I know how difficult dealing with it can be. I killed people and men died under my command. It was a different war, but I know what you are going through."

"What do I do if a child doesn't stop crying at night?" He almost has to laugh about this, not just at the rapid change of topic, but also that the question itself, because it is a question he asked himself a million times when one of his girls wouldn't stop crying at night, but he keeps himself under control.

"Hold it, comfort it. That's all you can do, unless the child is hungry or needs to have something changed."

"Have you ever done that?"

"What?"

"Changed a diaper?"

"Yes."

"Really?"

"Cora thought that we should take care of the girls ourselves at night and I couldn't very well let her do all the work. It is not as disgusting as you would think."

"Does your mother know this?"  
"Are you crazy? She'd still be lecturing me on it today if she had found out. 'It is not proper Robert, it is just not done.' But I stopped caring about what she thought was proper the day I got married and there was not need to tell her. To this day she still believes that I spend most nights in my dressing room."

"And you don't."

"Do you?"

"No. Why would I?"

"Indeed." Matthew now has to laugh but calms down again quickly.

"I am sorry, about what I said earlier. I was just overwhelmed with it all. I just never thought something like that would happen."

"No. Neither did I. And I haven't given up hope. Maybe something will turn up. And if it doesn't, well then we have to face it. It will be a disgrace, I will be the laughing stock of society for the rest of my life, but I will have to live with it and I will be able to live with it."

"What will you tell Cora?"

"The awful truth. All of it. I have to, I can't lie to her, it is her money I have lost." He briefly wonders whether he should tell Matthew how uncomfortable he feels about this, that that is the worst part of it all but he can't, he doesn't think that Matthew would understand. He has lost his wife's money, the reason they got married, or at least half of the reason for their, as his mother likes to say 'peculiar marriage', because Cora will of course keep the title. But she married him, expecting to live in the splendor of the Abbey for the rest of her life and that will most likely not happen now and he thinks that he has failed her more than anyone. The money was supposed to be used to keep the estate running, not be invested in some foolish enterprise. He is sure that he won't really lose her over this, she loves him too much for that, but he isn't sure that he won't have lost her trust, at least for a while and just the thought is pure torture for him.

"Are you scared?"

"Of telling her? Yes. I'm scared of her disappointment, but I deserve it."

"I meant scared of the future."

"I don't know, I haven't thought about the future too much yet, I just can't wrap my head around it."

* * *

She's been waiting for her husband on tenterhooks because she knows that there is something wrong. He usually tells her why he goes to town, if not always in detail, but she always has a rough idea, but this time he had only said 'nothing to worry you, my dear' when she had asked him why he went and that had made her worry. Either Robert thinks that she is still too weak to discuss serious matters, or the matter is so serious that he doesn't want to talk to her about it before he knows the whole extent of it. She dearly hopes it is the first option. She doesn't like it when he still treats her as if she was sick, but the second option scares her. Robert telephoned in the morning, he actually telephoned himself and asked to speak to her and all he told her then was that he and the boys would return later than they originally thought because some errand had come up for Matthew, the boy needed to meet Reggie Swire's lawyer for some reason. She asked Robert why he had telephoned himself, why he hadn't just let the staff take care of it and he said that he had wanted to hear her voice. That had seemed rather odd to her and scared her even more.

They finally return shortly before dinner and both Matthew and Robert seem to be extremely preoccupied while Tom just looks a little flabbergasted, maybe the meetings were about something he thought he shouldn't be involved in. She gives Robert a fleeting kiss on the cheek and asks him how it was and he looks at her with a fallen face and says "later". So they go through dinner and she is beyond glad that they don't have any guests and can retire rather early. Once he comes into their room, dressed only in his dressing gown and pajamas, he sits down on their bed and motions for her to sit too. She sits on the footrest in front of him and can hardly believe what she is hearing. It is so unusual for her husband to be so foolish. When he tells her that he has lost almost all her fortune she feels sorrier for him than she has ever felt for anyone. He looks so defeated and he really shouldn't. He made one mistake. A rather huge one, but it was just one and she is sure it wasn't done on purpose. So she slides of the footrest and kneels in front of him and tells him how sorry she is for him and that he shouldn't worry about her. She really thinks this, there is nothing he should worry about because they certainly won't have to live on the streets. They will probably have to move to a smaller house on a smaller estate, but she can live with that. She loves Downton, she loves the house and the estate but all that is not half as important to her as her husband. When he thanks God for her, she realizes what a burden she has taken of him and she hugs him and he holds onto her. They slowly move onto kissing, chaste at first, but more passionate over time and when they lie in each others' arms a while later, he looks at her and says

"I didn't think this would happen tonight."

"Why not?"

"I thought you'd be disappointed. I've basically thrown away the basis of our marriage." She keeps herself in check to not role her eyes. She knows him too well to not understand what he means.

"No darling. All you've lost is half of what the world believes is the basis of our marriage. The other half is the title for me and I won't lose that. But you know that this marriage is not about money, or a title, or a house or an estate. It is about us, you and I and is based on mutual, deep love. That is all that really matters. When I was so sick, I was scared I would have to die and I didn't want to die. But not because I was scared of death, it is a part of life and we can't change that, but because I wanted to be with you. I want to spend my life with you, I just didn't want to leave you. You were only gone the last two days, but I missed you. I had trouble falling asleep last night because you weren't next to me, because I couldn't talk to you. Being with you is all that matters to me. Or most of what matters to me because our family matters to me as well, of course, but I only have that family because of you. "

"You've lost your home because of me."

"No. We, you and me and two of our daughters and two of our sons-in-law, have lost a house. A beautiful house, I grant you, but my home, our home, is this family." She hopes he understands what she is saying. She really isn't disappointed, worse things have happened in the world, much worse things. He turns to her and looks into her eyes.

"I love you. With all my heart. I can face this as long as you are on my side, as long as you are with me."

"I love you too. And I will always be with you."

* * *

"You look preoccupied."

"What?"

"I said that you looked preoccupied."

"I look how I feel then." Sometimes her husband driver her nuts.

"Why do you feel preoccupied?"

"I am thinking about fate."

"Fate?" As far as she knows Matthew isn't exactly religious. He does go to church occasionally, but not on a regular basis and only because her father says that the future Earl of Grantham must be seen in church from time to time. Although her father doesn't go to church any more than Matthew does. She thinks that her mother and Tom are the only family members who believe in God at all, but even they aren't exactly avid church goers.

"Mary, when we went to London, we met Murray who told us that your father had lost all of your mother's fortune in a rather unlucky investment." Her heart begins to race. What does this mean? Will they have to leave the Abbey? She doesn't want to do that. It is the only home she has ever known. She was born here, she has lived here all her life, and just like her father, she hopes to die here. Not any time in the near future, maybe in sixty years, when she is old and grey and a great-grandmother.

"Will we have to leave?"

"Unless the estate can be saved, and that's where fate comes in. Reggie Swire's lawyer told me today that I was Reggie's heir and Reggie was rich. Much richer than you could ever imagine Mary. So rich, that I could save Downton twice, if I accepted the money."

"If?" Matthew must be going mad. He has to accept the money.

"He gave it to me because of Lavinia. He thought I was the love of her life."

"And so you were."

"But she wasn't the love of my life."

"Reggie knew that, Matthew. He sent us a very nice congratulatory letter to our wedding. He would have come if he had been in a better condition. He asked both of us to be with him when he died."

"So you think that I should accept the money and safe the estate."

"Yes." She takes his hand and places it on her abdomen. "This child maybe your heir. And if it is a girl, the next child might be your heir. Matthew, you and I are very likely to eventually become the parents of a future Earl of Grantham. And wouldn't it be nice to be able to pass all of this onto him?"

"Mary, you are using our child to manipulate me."

"Yes." She sees no reason in denying it; that is exactly what she is doing.

"Why?"

"Because I love this estate and this house and so do you. And I love Papa and I don't want him to suffer the social disgrace of financial ruin."

"And?"

"I love you and I love our child, even if it hasn't been born yet. I only want the best for us, for all of us."

"It is a very nice house."

"Yes, Matthew."

"And it would help safe your father from disgrace."

"Yes."

"Would it make you happy?"

"Very happy. This is my childhood home, I want our children to grow up here as well." She really wants that, she thinks that she had a very happy childhood. There were of course constant fights with her sisters, especially with Edith and they had several governesses she didn't like, but all in all she was happy as a child. Her parents never let her or her sisters feel that life would have been much easier for them if at least one of them had been a boy, she only recognized the magnitude of her parents never having had a boy when she was sixteen. Her father's cousins Susan and Shrimpie were visiting the estate and Mary overheard a late night conversation between them and her parents. They had all drunk a little too much and Mary had already been in bed but gotten up again. She didn't think that anyone would have still been downstairs, but apparently both her parents and Susan and Shrimpie had not yet gone to bed.

"It must be so hard for you to not have a boy," Susan had said.

"We can live with it. We love our girls."

"But the estate won't stay in the family."

"Not unless one of the girls marries Patrick." She had always known that the estate would go to her cousin Patrick, but she never realized what the meant for her parents, especially her father. He couldn't pass the estate on the way he wanted to, he should have been able to pass it on to a son. The next day she got up early and went to her mother's room, where true to her prediction both her parents were. She told them that she was sorry that she hadn't turned out to be a boy and her parents had looked at her flabbergasted.

"Why?" her mother had asked.

"Because you wouldn't have to give the estate away then."

Her father then got up and hugged her and told her that he would rather lose the estate than exchange one of his girls for a boy. She didn't understand it then, but she understands it now. She hopes for her child to be a boy, because she wants Matthew to have an heir, but if this child turned out to be a girl, she'd love her all the same and just as much, she knows that.

"Mary?" Matthew's voice brings her back to the present.

"I was just thinking, sorry, darling."

"I should do it, shouldn't I? I should accept the money and help your father out."

"Yes."

"I will. I want this place to be our home. Our children's home." She begins to kiss Matthew now and he kisses her two and there is nothing for them to hold back.

* * *

He will never forget the look on Robert's face when Matthew told them a few weeks ago that he would save the estate. Robert even tried to talk Matthew out of it, but only for a short while because Matthew made an excellent case about why he should save the estate, why it was his duty to preserve it for future generations. When he heard Matthew talk like that, he realized how similar Matthew and Robert are, how alike they sometimes think, even though there are many aspects over which they disagree. He had also seen a look of pride on Robert's face when Matthew explained why he thought the estate was worth saving, it was the look of a proud father and for a fleeting second, he had been jealous. He shook himself out of it, of course, because it was stupid.

It has always been obvious to him, to anyone, that the relationship between Matthew and Robert is much closer to that of father and son than to a relationship between distant cousins. One of the reasons why the staff refer to Matthew as 'Mr. Matthew' is that many of them see him as Robert's son. Some of the more senior staff who already were at the house when Robert's father was still alive, sometimes refer to Matthew as 'the young lord', a term of endearment they apparently had for Robert as well. Mr. Carson has of course forbidden this, Tom knows this from Edith who, because she wanted to surprise her parents entered the house through the kitchen a while ago and overheard Carson dressing down a new unsuspecting kitchen maid for referring to Matthew as 'the young lord". The maid, a rather cheeky one apparently, had replied that she thought that Matthew was the young lord because Mrs. Hughes, Anna and Bates all referred to him as that. According to Edith, Carson almost went ballistic at that and only noticed Edith after he was done yelling. Edith later told the story in the sitting room and Robert almost chocked on his drink, laughed himself silly, patted Matthew on the back and said 'there you go son'.

He wonders if Robert would laugh if he knew that when he left his and Sybil's bedroom a few nights ago because two hall boys were making a racket in the family wing, a part of the house they shouldn't even have been in, and he told them off for being so loud and for being in the family wing, the boys looked at him rather awestruck and one of them then said "Yes mi'lord." He told the boys that he was just Mr. Branson and the other one then replied "not to us, you're not." He didn't know what to say to that and went back into his room, but it gave him something to think about. The hall boys were young but not new. They came to the house after he had married Sybil, but they've been at the house for a while and they either didn't know or didn't care about the fact that he used to be the chauffeur. To them he is a member of the family and nothing else. He has no idea what to think about that, his old self would have spit on his feet, but in a very weird way, it had also made him proud. He made a difficult transition and he obviously doesn't make a complete fool of himself.

He has now been walking around the estate for quite a while and he is on his way back when sees Robert and Cora in front of him.

"It's been more than a year now," Robert says and he is sure that he is referring to Cora becoming so sick.

"Yes. And I am back on my feet."

"Thank the heavens."

"Yes. I hated being coped up in that room."  
"I know you did."

"It has changed us though, hasn't it? Changed the way we look at things? What is important to us?"

"Yes. But I think it has changed us for the better. Especially me, because there is not much to improve about you." He has to smile at this. Robert could give lessons in making women look at men with gooey eyes and make women's knees go weak. He'd have never have suspected it while he was still their driver, but the Earl of Grantham is quite the romantic. He has to laugh out loud at this thought and both his parents-in-law turn around, look at him and they both smile in welcome.

"Oh, hello Tom," Robert says. "Is anything the matter?" It is a friendly question, not a way of asking why he has interrupted them.

"No, no."

"Good. We've been invited to Duneagle for two weeks in the summer."

"Your cousin Shrimpie's estate in the north?"

"Yes. There'll be a lot of stalking and dinners. I hope Sybil and you are coming along."

"I don't think I'd be considered to be part of the family."

"Tom, it is not up to my cousin to decide who is part of my family, our family. He wrote to invite me and my family, so I sincerely hope that you will join us." A little over a year ago, Robert tried to make him leave Downton without Sybil forever and now he insists on him being part of the family and taking him on a family vacation, knowing full well that his cousin won't be pleased by Robert bringing the chauffeur.

"Tom, don't think of yourself as the chauffeur anymore, please." It is Cora who says this and she looks at him quite motherly.

"How can I not?"

"By accepting that you have become part of this family. And you are an asset. Both to our stubborn ways of thinking and to the estate. Matthew and you have made this estate profitable. We are very proud of you, aren't we darling?" Robert now looks at Cora imploringly and she says

"Of course we are," and then she touches his arm the same way she does with her daughters and Matthew.

"Tom, Tom!" It is Sybil who is calling for him and when he turns around he sees her running to him at full speed. "I was right. I just saw Dr. Clarkson and I was right." He can't stop his face from breaking into a smile and he lifts her of the ground and then kisses her soundly, not caring about her parents standing right next to them.

"You probably shouldn't be running around like this then. You have to be careful."

"Yes, Sybil darling you should." It is Cora who says this and she smiles at both of them and then turns to Robert who doesn't really seem to understand.

"We'll be the grandparents to two children soon, Robert." His father-in-law now begins to smile too, and Sybil then gets a hug and a kiss on the cheek from both her parents, while he gets a pat on the shoulder from Robert and hug from Cora.

"Well, I think we should go back inside."

"Yes, we should." With that Cora takes hold of Robert's arm and they make their way towards the house.

"Two grandchildren. Cora, I am old."

"No, you aren't old. Because if you were old, then I'd be old too and that is certainly not the case."

"Are you sure?" He can see Cora playfully swatting Robert's arm and he can hear them laugh even if he can't understand what they are saying anymore.

"I am glad our children will get to meet their grandmother. I am so glad she made it through, not just for you, but for our children as well."

"Yes. I am glad they will see my parents together. It will teach them that love prevails." They watch until Sybil's parents are inside and then he takes Sybil by the hand and they walk around the estate, their home, their children's home.


End file.
